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CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE. 

PART  I  (For  All). 

1.  Modern  Thought  and  Modern  Poetry      -  -  i 

2.  The  Poet  as  Moralist          -        -        -        -  -  ii 

3.  Anno  Domini  and  the  Exotic        -        -        -  -  19 

4.  The  New  Movement  and  New  Standards  -  -  23 

PART  II  (For  Philosophers). 

5.  The  Function  of  the  Arts  -        -        -        -  29 

6.  The  Poetic  Method  42 

7.  The  *  Art  for  Art's  Sake'  Dilemma  -        -  50 

8.  Symbolism  and  the  '  Ghost  '  Theory    -        -        -  57 

9.  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Metre        -        -        -        -  68 

10.  Poetic  Architecture      -        -        -        -        -        -  82 

11.  Poetic  Suggestion         ------    gi 

12.  The  Poet  and  his  Audience         -        -        -        -  loi 

PART  III  (For  Missionaries). 

13.  Poetry  and  Education  -        -        -  -  -  iii 

14.  Poetry  and  the  Child  -        -        -  -  -  120 

15.  Learning  to  read  Poetry     -        -        -  -  -  131 

16.  Learning  to  write  Poetry    -        -        -  -  -  142 

PART  IV  (For  Critics). 

17.  The  Function  of  Criticism   -----  156 

18.  The  Vices  and  Virtues  of  the  Old  Critics      -  166 

19.  The  Vices  and  Virtues  of  the  New  Critics       -  189 

20.  Parodies,  Satires  and  Epigrams  -        -        -  200 

PART  V  (For  Readers). 

Short  Studies  of  some  Modern  Poets  : — D.  H. 
Lawrence— Robert  Graves^ — Sturge  Moore^ — iGor- 
don  Bottomley — W.  J.  Turner — Vachel  Lindsaiy 
— The  Sitwellsi — ^John  Masefield — Walter  de  la 
Mare — Arthur  Waley — Edward  Shanks^ — Amy 
Lowell — Charlotte  Mew — Edmund  Blunden — ^J.  C. 
Scjuire^ — ^Flecker — Rupert  Brook — Robert  Nichols  211 


NOTE 

Certain  portions  of  this  book  have  appeared  from 
time  to  time  in  The  Spectator, 

The  author  acknowledg-es  the  courtesy  of  the  authors 
and  publishers  in  g"iving-  her  permission  to  quote  excerpts 
from  the  following  books :  A.  D.  Waley's  Japanese 
Poetry  (Milford)  and  More  Translations  from  the  Chinese 
(Allen  and  Unwin) ;  Mr.  Masefield's  works  (Heinemann) ; 
Charlotte  Mew's  The  Farmer's  Bride  (Poetry  Bookshop) ; 
E.;  V.  Lucas's  Parodies  Regained  (Methuen) ;  Edward 
Shanks' s  The  Island  of  Youth  (Collins)  and  The  Queen  of 
China  (Seeker) ;  Augustine  Rivers's  The  Death  of  Mer- 
cury (Daniel) ;  W.  W.  Gibson's  works  (MacMillan) ; 
Osbert  Sitwell's  De  Luxe  (Leonard  Parsons) ;  Rupert 
Brooke's  1914  and  other  Poems,  and  Edmund  Blunden's 
Waggoner  (Sidgwick  and  Jackson) ;  Robert  Nicholls's 
Aurelia  (Chattoi  and  Windus) ;  D.  H.  Lawrence's  Amores 
(Duckworth) ;  J.  E.  Flecker's  Collected  Poems  (Seeker) ; 
Sturge  Moore's  works  (Grant  Richards) ;  Aldous  Huxley's 
Crome  Yellow  (Chattoi  and  Windus) ;  and  Walter  de  la 
Mare'si  Collected  Works  and  The   Veil  (Constable). 

A.  W.-E. 

June,  1922. 


PART    I 

(FOR  ALL) 


Chapter    I 

MODERN  THOUGHT  AND  MODERN 
POETRY 

I 

Who  was  it  who  was  inspecting  a  Board  School 
and, — talking  about  Byron, — mentioned  the  word 
'  Athens  ?  '  He  turned  to  the  class  of  children, 
and  said  :  '  Where  is  Athens  ? '  There  was  dead 
silence.  When  he  added  impressively,  '  This  is 
geography,'  a  dozen  hands  at  once  went  up. 

In  almost  every  field  of  knowledge  people  are 
at  work  now  trying  to  bring  about  the  end  of  what 
we  may  call  the  age  of  bulkheads.  It  was,  of 
course,  a  tremendous  advance  when  the  bulkheads 
were  set  up,  when  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
Philosophy,  which  had  once  stood  for  any  sort  of 
knowledge  that  was  not  divinity  or  history,  began 
to  be  divided  up  into  Natural  Philosophy,  Rhe- 
toric, Grammar,  Metaphysics,  and  so  on.  It  was 
all  gain  when  in  '  natural  philosophy,'  Botany 
separated  itself  from  Geology.  But  we  have  all  felt 
lately  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  pendulum 
to  swing  back  again.  Knowledge  was  beginning 
to  suffer  from  the  fact  that  the  man  who  studied 
cryptogams  would  hold  firmly  aloof  from  phanaro- 
gams.     The  supply  of  facts  kept  up,  but  we  were 


4  MODERN  THOUGHT  AND  MODERN  POETRY 

beginning  to  lack  a  ifew  fresh  general  principles. 
Moreover,  as  each  scientist  pushed  along  his  par- 
ticular line  of  enquiry,  it  began  gradually  to  appear 
that  knowledge,  like  art,  was  one.  This  seemed  at 
first  rather  a  shocking  discovery.  For  as  soon  as 
he  got  to  the  higher  regions  of  the  conical  hill  of 
knowledge  each  scientist,  however  conscientious, 
observed  that  he  seemed  to  be  trespassing  on  some- 
body else's  ground.  Professor  Einstein,  Mr.  Bert- 
ram Russell,  Professor  Whitehead,  and  Professor 
Keynes,  for  instance,  a  little  while  ago  appeared  to 
spend  half  their  working  lives  in  explaining  how 
innocently  they  found  themselves  (a)  poaching  on 
each  other's  preserves,  and  (d)  wandering  on  to  the 
arch  Tom-Tiddler's  ground.  Human  psychology. 
And  what  is  more,  these  gentlemen  really  were  as 
innocent  as  babes,  and  had,  as  they  averred,  been 
landed  in  these  questionable  regions  while  each  fol- 
lowing perfectly  legitimate  lines  of  enquiry  in  their 
own  subjects.  It  all  came  of  the  peculiar  shape  of 
the  hill  of  knowledge. 

At  last  it  occurred  to  somebody  to  wonder  if  the 
overlapping  of  scientists  might  not  be  as  harmless 
as  the  overlapping  of  tiles.  Then  it  was  that 
everybody  suddenly  found  out  what  a  fascinating 
game  this  synthesis  was,  and  humble  investigators 
on  the  lower  slopes  began  to  ape  their  betters. 
Captains  of  Industry  began  to  study  Psychology, 
Psychologists  began  to  study  Factories  or  Meta- 
physics, Metaphysicians  began  to  study  Astro- 
nomy, Astronomers  learnt  Logic  and  Psychology. 
And  now  the  arts  have  been  drawn  into  the  vortex. 


MODERN  THOUGHT  AND  MODERN  POETRY 

Psychologists  and  students  of  comparative  religion' 
have,  of  course,  necessarily  long  concerned  them- 
selves with  primitive  art.  At  last  we  have  all, 
poets,  critics,  and  psychologists,  begun  to  wonder 
whether  a  study  of  modern  and  civilised  art,  rather 
from  the  same  point  of  view,  might  not  yield  inter- 
esting results. 

Why  do  people  paint  pictures  ?  Why  do  people 
buy  pictures  ?  Why  do  people  write  poetry  ?  Why 
do  people  read  poetry.^  They  always  have,  and 
they  apparently  always  mean  to.  How  is  aesthetic 
experience  related  to  other  experiences  and  to  life 
in  general.'^  Is  the  poet  a  maker  of  beauty  or  a 
prophet  of  the  laws  ?  These  are  some  of  the  ques- 
tions that  we  have  begun  to  ask  ourselves, — to  ask 
with  a  certain  shame  for  they  seem  so  indecently 
fundamental. 

Now  the  modern  poetic  movement  has  been 
defined  as  being  among  other  things  a  movement 
which  is  bringing  poetry  closer  to  everyday  life. 
Here  then  is  a  sort  of  natural  movement  toward 
synthesis  for  us  to  study.  Perhaps  therefore  before 
we  try  to  consider  the  alarmingly  large,  vague 
question,  '  What  is  poetry  for  ?  '  we  shall  find  it 
easier  if  we  first  ask  the  smaller  question,  '  What 
is  modern  poetry  for  ?  ' 

What  shall  we  actually  find  if  we  look  at  the 
new  poetic  movement  as  contrasted  with  other 
poetic  movements  of  other  epochs  .^^  What  is  its 
nature  and  how  does  it  function.^  If  we  try  to 
study  the  relations  between  poetry  and  life  as  they 
exist  at  the  moment,  we  at  any  rate  find  that  we 


6  MODERN  THOUGHT  AND  MODERN  POETRY 

know  something  of  one  factor.  We  are  all  of  us 
bound  to  have  to  some  extent  a  first  hand  knowledge 
of  what  we  mean  when  we  say  '  Modern  Life.'  It 
is  for  this  reason  that  before  attacking  any  of  the 
fundamental  questions  of  psychology  and  aes- 
thetics, I  first  propose  to  consider  the  modern  poetic 
movement  and  its  antecedents. 

At  any  rate  I  like  to  think  that  this  is  the  reason. 
Perhaps  the  real  reason  is  that  the  main  question, 
*  What  does  poetry  do,  and  how  does  it  do  it  ? '  is 
so  difficult  that  I  prefer  to  conceal  my  attempt  to 
deal  with  it  in  the  comparative  privacy  of  the  middle 
of  the  book. 

II 

It  is  sometimes  very  difficult  to  be  sure  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  homogeneous  mass  which 
we  can  conveniently  call  poetry  in  general. 

What  is  curious  about  poetry  is  that  rather 
more  definitely  than  the  other  arts  it  laminates. 
It  divides  itself  into  strata  corresponding  with 
epochs.  Really  it  is  the  epoch-made  likeness 
between  such  pairs  as  Chaucer  and  Gower  :  Green 
and  Webster  :  Crashaw  and  Donne  :  Pope  and 
Young  :  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  :  Tennyson 
and  Browning,  not  their  individual  diversity,  Vv^hich 
is  surprising.  If  v/e  do  not  press  the  distinction 
too  far,  we  can  quite  easily  distinguish  the  verse  of 
any  age  from  that  of  any  other  age  and,  inciden- 
tally, modern  verse  from  the  verse  of  any  other 
period   whatever.      It    is    in    vain    to    plead    that 


MODERN  THOUGHT  AND  MODERN  POETRY  7 

modern  poetry  has  no  definite  characteristics,  be- 
cause of  two  facts.  First,  there  certainly  exist 
poems  which  are  definitely  non-modern.  No 
critic,  however  inexperienced,  could  pick  up  new 
editions  of  The  Song  of  the  Shirt,  Enoch  Arden, 
or  The  Highland  Reaper  and  take  them  to  be 
modern  poems.  They  might  all  have  been  written 
yesterday,  of  course,  but  obviously  much  verse 
produced  at  the  moment  is  non-modern.  Secondly, 
there  exist  poems — Flecker's  '  Santoria,'  Mr.  Sas- 
soon's  'Every  One  Singing,'  Mr.  Masefield's 
sonnet  sequence  from  '  Enslaved,'  Mr.  Robert 
Graves's  '  Blackhorse  Lane  ' — which  have  some- 
thing in  them  which  makes  it  clearly  impossible 
that  they  should  have  been  produced  in  any  literary 
period  but  the  present. 

The  three  poems  that  I  have  instanced  as  defi- 
nitely non-modern  are,  of  course,  all  drawn  from 
the  immediate  past  of  poetry,  but  though  it  is 
conceivable  that  we  might  be  deceived  by  a  line 
or  two  from  some  individual  poem  by  Donne  or 
Marlowe  or  from  one  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  we 
shall  not  really  find  any  difficulty  in  distinguishing 
any  complete  non-modern  poem  even  from 
examples  of  such  modern  verse  as  are  either  imita- 
tions or  derive  pretty  directly  from  ancient 
originals. 

If  we  can  distinguish  the  characteristic  verse 
of  this  age  from  the  verse  of  any  other  age,  then  we 
have  succeeded  in  dividing  our  subject-matter  into 
two  rough  heaps.  There  is  a  heap  of  moderns  and 
a  heap  of  non-moderns.     The  heaps  are  adjacent, 


8  MODERN  THOUGHT  AND  MODERN  POETRY 

and  there  are  poems  from  each  which  have  slipped 
down,  and  these  almost  cover  the  debatable  ground 
in  the  middle.  In  John  Clare's,  Donne's,  Blake's, 
Mr.  Freeman's,  and  Mr.  Sturge  Moore's  poems  we 
are  conscious  of  this  slipping  tendency.  But  it  is 
easy  enough  to  find  plenty  of  typical  examples 
from  either  pile. 

What  shall  we  find  if  we  examine  a  handful 
of  specimens  from  the  top  of  the  modern  heap,  all 
poems,  let  us  say,  written  since  the  war  ?  To  take 
the  broadest  characteristics  first,  we  shall  find  that 
these  poems  are  the  expression  of  an  attitude  of 
mind  which  is  strongly  contrasted  with  that  of  the 
Victorians.  These  modern  writers  were,  we  are  to 
remember,  brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  in  which 
the  validity  of  certain  truths  and  the  admirableness 
of  certain  virtues  were  assumed  to  be  self-evident. 
Those  who  had  the  breeding  of  them  taught  them 
unquestioningly  the  value  of  such  qualities  as 
courage,  discipline,  patriotism,  and  the  subordina- 
tion of  self  to  the  good  of  the  State.  They  lived 
to  see  these  virtues,  embodied  in  the  Prussian 
citizen,  produce  the  late  war.  Some  of  them  are 
now  maimed  or  blind.  They  thus  learned  pretty 
forcibly  the  horrors  of  a  taken-for-granted  morality. 

They  had  been  further  brought  up  to  a  belief 
in  the  efficacy  of  certain  literary  doctrines.  For 
instance,  the  suitability  of  certain  poetic  form.s  to 
the  treatment  of  certain  subjects;  the  suitability  of 
a  special  sort  of  poetic  diction  or,  alternatively,  of 
'  dialect '  to  poetic  subjects  in  general ;  the  abso- 
lute fatality  to  the  success  of  a  poem  of  the  presence 


MODERN    THOUGHT    AND    MODERN    POETRY  9 

of  certain  poetic  solecisms  (rhymes  like  '  morn  '  and 
^  dawn,'  for  example).  They  lived  to  see  these  taken- 
for-granted  poetic  formulae  produce — absolutely 
nothing.  The  late  Victorian  and  Edwardian  Muse 
was  quite  efficaciously  buried  beneath  a  vast  heap 
of  '  thou  shalts  '  and  '  thou  shalt  nots.'  She  was 
scarcely  able  to  emit  a  squeak.  If  moral  right  and 
wrong  had  been  obscured  by  formulae,  was  it  not 
possible  that  so  had  aesthetic  right  and  wrong? 
Again  they  asked  themselves,  had  the  poetic  canons 
which  they  found  to  be  now  accepted  ruled  all 
writers  in  the  past.^  They  read  a  few  of  the  old 
examples  of  vers  litre.  They  read  poems  like 
'  When  that  I  was  and  a  little  tiny  boy  '  and  felt 
inclined  to  doubt  it.  Anyhow,  all  this  had  to  be 
very  carefully  investigated,  and  the  age  of  the 
*  tradition  of  the  elders  '  carefully  ascertained.  It 
was  thus  in  a  spirit  of  conjecture,  experiment  and 
doubt  that  the  new  poetic  age  began.  For  the  first 
time  for  fifty  years  poets — like  other  people — 
began  to  believe  it  was  possible  that  their  instinc- 
tively-held ideas  might  be  mistaken  ones,  that  it 
was  just  possible  that  the  main  canons  of  aesthetics 
and  morality  were  not — as  had  been  previously 
supposed — as  plain  as  pike-staffs. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that  there  was  no 
whisper  of  this  questioning  spirit  before  the  war 
or  even  that  under  the  Tennyson  oratorio  the 
attentive  might  not  discern  the  strains  of  an  illusive 
little  obligato  by  Matthew  Arnold.  Human  events 
never  happen  with  the  diagrammatic  clearness  that 
I  have  suggested.     Some  Bernard  Shaw  or  A.  E. 


lO         MODERN    THOUGHT    AND    MODERN    POETRY 

Housman  will  always  write  without  proper  regard 
for  our  systems  of  chronology  either  in  morals  or 
aesthetics,  but  it  is  sometimes  convenient  for  the 
sake  of  suggesting  a  point  clearly,  to  regard  as  the 
causes  of  certain  effects  events  which  were  in  fact 
only  their  precipitants,  or  even  merely  circum- 
stances that  convinced  a  great  number -of  people  of 
the  truth  or  utility  of  doctrines  which  a  small 
number  of  people  had  long  enunciated. 


Chapter    II 

THE    POET    AS    MORALIST 

But  the  failure  of  any  system  of  taken-for-granted 
morality  which  the  War  brought  to  light,  had,  of 
course,  a  much  more  direct  result  than  that  of 
merely  making  the  younger  poets  reconsider  their 
technical  creeds.  The  ethical  upheaval  had  the 
strongest  possible  direct  influence  upon  modern 
verse.  What  was  the  old  attitude  ?  Milton  set  out 
'  to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  Man/  Tennyson 
was  even  surer  about  the  facts  of  morality  than  he 
was  about  the  facts  of  poetry,  because,  we  should 
now  say,  he  was  a  good  poet  and  an  amateur 
moralist.  It  is  also  arguable  that  the  Byron- 
Baudelaire-Maupassant-Wilde  type  of  poet  was 
just  as  sure  about  moral  principles  as  he,  only  that 
their  assurance  took  them  the  other  way;  they 
praised  the  flowers  of  evil.  Wilde  might  be  said 
to  be,  therefore,  as  it  were,  the  obverse  of  Tenny- 
son. Each  of  them  was  quite  sure  of  what  was 
right  and  what  was  wrong,  and  therefore  bandied 
about  moral  '  claptrap  '  with  freedom  and  gusto. 
The  difference  between  both  of  them  and  the 
modern  poet  is  that  he  regards  the  facts  of  morality 
from  the  other  end,  not  as  things  to  be  defended  or 
attacked,  but  as  things  to  be  ascertained.  Hence 
a  great  deal  of  the  alleged  impropriety  and  absorp- 
tion in  questions  of  sex  of  the  modern  poet.     Hence 


12  THE  POET  AS  MORALIST 

also  much  of  the  realism  of  such  writers  as  Mr. 
Masefield  and  Mr.  Lascelles  Abercrombie.  Ugly 
facts  of  the  material  world,  or  of  the  poet's  or  his 
characters'  natures,  must  not  have  a  blind  eye 
turned  to  them.  If  we  never  look  at  them,  how 
can  we  know  if  they  are  good  or  bad  ?  We  should 
have  only  a  tradition  instead  of  evidence. 

With  many  lapses  because  he  is  human,  the 
modern  poet  desires  to  call  nothing  common  or 
unclean,  not  even  smug  self-satisfaction.  The  one 
thing  which  he  fears,  to  which  he  cannot  avoid 
hostility,  is  the  aforesaid  '  claptrap,'  for  he  is  aware 
of  the  fearful  efficacy  w^ith  which  talk  disguises  a 
man's  notions — from  himself  as  much  as  from  the 
rest  of  the  world.  He  is  for  the  truth  at  all  costs ; 
and,  as  all  modern  poems  are  obviously  not  suc- 
cesses, he  sometimes  sacrifices  the  unity  of  a  con- 
cept, the  harmony  of  a  phrase,  or  even  his  sense  of 
humour  to  this  hunger  for  exactness.  Very  often 
he  will  limit  himself  to  a  puritanical  plainness  of 
phrase.  This  is  indeed  a  very  marked  characteris- 
tic of  much  modern  work.  I  should  like  to  give 
the  reader  two  examples  of  the  effects  of  these 
apparent  verbal  returns  to  nature.  One  is  by  Mr. 
Joseph  Campbell,  and  one  by  Mr.  D.  H.  Lawrence. 
The  first  shows  the  Puritanical  method  applied  to 
the  elegiac  mood  : 

The  Old  Woman. 

As   a  white  candle 

In  a  holy  place, 
So  is  the  beauty 

Of  an  SLghd  face. 


THE  POET  AS  MORALIST  I3 

As  the  spent  radiance 

Of  the  winter  sun, 
So  is  a  woman 

With  her  travail  done. 

Her  brood  gone  from  her, 

And  her  thoughts  as  still 
As  the  waters 

Under  a  ruined  mill. 

Here  again  is  verbal  Puritanism  applied  to  a  mood 
of  burning  passion  : 

And  if  I  never  see  her  again? 

I  think,  if  they  told  me  so, 

I  could  convulse  the  heavens  with  my  horror. 

I  think  I  could  alter  the  frame  of  things)  in  my  agony. 

I  think  I  could  break  the  system  with  my  heart. 

I  think,  in  my  convulsion,  the  skies  would  break. 

Poetry  has  come  back  to  what  is  something  like 
a  Wordsworthian  care  and  meticulousness  in  the 
matter  of  language. 

Wordsworth's  confessed  aim  was  '  to  bring  my 
language  near  to  the  real  language  of  men.'  The 
moderns  are  no  more  afraid  than  was  Wordsworth 
of  the  type  of  criticism  embodied  in  Dr.  Johnson's 
famous  lines  which  Wordsworth  quotes  in  con- 
nexion with  his  own  defence  of  simple  language  : — 

*  I  put  my  hat  upon  my  head 
And  walked  into  the  Strand, 
And  there  I  met  another  man. 
Whose  hat  was  in  his  hand.' 

They  do  fear — to  quote  Wordsworth  again — '  What 
is  usually  called  poetic  diction,  a  language  differing 


14  THE  POET  AS  MORALIST 

materially  from  the  real  language  of  men  in  any 
situation  .  .  .  and  characterised  by  various  degrees 
of  wanton  deviation  from  good  sense  .  .  .  With 
the  progress  of  refinement  this  diction  became  more 
and  more  corrupt,  thrusting  out  of  sight  the  plain 
humanities  of  nature  by  a  motley  masquerade  of 
tricks,  quaintnesses,  hieroglyphics,  and  enigmas.' 
He  proceeds  to  give  several  instances  of  poetic 
diction,  among  them  Prior's  :  '  Did  sweeter  sounds 
adorn  my  flowing  tongue,'  which  that  poet  in  a 
paraphrase  substituted  for :  '  Though  I  speak 
with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels.'  Again, 
there  is,  he  says,  the  '  hubbub  of  words,'  in  which 
Dr.  Johnson  versified  Proverbs — '  Go  to  the  ant, 
thou  sluggard,  consider  her  ways,  and  be  wise  : 
which  having  no  guide,  overseer,  or  ruler,  pro- 
videth  her  meat  in  the  summer,  and  gathereth  her 
food  in  the  harvest.  How  long  wilt  thou  sleep,  O 
sluggard.^  Wilt  thou  arise  out  of  thy  sleep .^  Yet 
a  little  sleep,  a  little  slumber,  a  little  folding  of  the 
hands  to  sleep.  So  shall  thy  poverty  come  as  one 
that  travaileth,  and  thy  want  as  an  armed  man.' 

*  Turn  on  the  prudent  ant  thy  heedless  eyes, 
Observe  her  labours,  sluggard,  and  be  wise ; 
No  stern  command,  no  monitory  voice, 
Prescribes  her  duties,  or  directs  her  choice; 
Yet,   timely  provident,   she  hastes  away 
To  snatch  the  blessings  of  a  plenteous  day  ; 
When  fruitful  summer  loads  the  teeming  plain, 
She  crops  the  harvest  and  she  stores  the  grain. 
How  long  shall  sloth  usurp  thy  useless  hours, 
Unnerve  thy  vigour,  andi  enchain  thy  powers? 
While  artful  shades  thy  downy  couch  inclose, 
And  soft  solicitation  courts  repK)se, 


THE  POET  AS  MORALIST  I  5 

Amidst  the  drowsy  charms  of  dull  delight, 
Year  chases  year  with  unremitted  flight, 
Till  Want  now  following,  fraudulent  and  slow. 
Shall  spring  to  seize  thee,  like  an  ambushed  foe.* 

Wordsworth  brought  speech  and  verse  together 
again  after  a  separation  of  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  but,  inevitably,  they  again  diverged,  and  by 
i860  the  poets  were  at  it  again,  having  substituted 
the  influence  of  '  Romance  '  for  that  of  Cicero.  In 
considering  the  modern  and  Wordsworthian  revolts, 
we  are  to  remember  that  Wordsworth  was  reacting 
from  the  late  unworthy  followers  of  Pope  and 
Dryden,  and  that  the  moderns  are  on  the  rebound 
from  a  less  nonsensical  use  of  verbiage.  Conse- 
quently they  are  able  to  allow  gorgeousness  of 
language  its  true  place  which  Wordsworth  could 
not.  They,  in  fact,  demand  no  more  than  that 
every  word  should  be  used  with  intention  and  a 
sense  of  its  meaning,  colour,  and  associations, 
and  that  words  should  not  be  slopped  about. 

This  sounds  very  simple,  and  we  might  think 
that,  whatever  their  practice,  all  poets  in  theory 
used  words  with  a  sort  of  double  nicety,  with  regard 
to  overt  meaning  and  also  to  symbolic  or  associa- 
tive meaning.  That  this  is  not  the  case  can  be 
proved  by  five  minutes'  perusal  of  such  a  book  as 
Swinburne's  Poems  and  Ballads,  where  the  highest 
place  is  intentionally  given  to  matters  of  rhythm 
and  an  extraordinary  number  of  rhetorical  sylla- 
bles can  be  found — words  whose  everyday  mean- 
ing is  even  slightly  inappropriate.  The  poet 
hasn't  bothered  about  this,  but  has  relied  entirely 


1 6  THE  POET  AS  MORALIST 

Upon  the  music  and  colour  of  his  words  and  the 
momentum  of  his  metre.  A  modern  writer  will 
almost  always  handle  his  words  with  extrem.e  re- 
spect,  however  great  the  levity  with  which  he  may 
confront  his  subject. 

This  desire  for  exactness  and  truth  has  another 
aesthetic  effect.  If  the  poem  be  a  subjective  one, 
it  may  lead  the  poet  to  what  may  seem  to  most 
readers  a  disagreeable  or  perhaps  a  boring  degree 
of  self-revelation.  If  it  is  objective,  it  will  lead  to 
great  detachment.  We  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to 
imply  that  the  objective  poem  possesses  detachment 
in  contrast  to  the  subjective  one,  for  a  moment's 
reflection  will  show  that  to  write  an  extremely  sub- 
jective poem  demands  an  even  higher  degree  of 
detachment  than  the  complete  suppression  of  self. 
Consider  some  of  Mr.  Aldous  Huxley's  subjective 
poems,  one  particularly  in  which  he  speaks  with 
half-grim,  half-humorous  despair  of  the  boring 
insistence  of  sex  : — 

'Love — was  there  no  escape? 
Was  it  always  there,  always  there, 
The  same  huge  dominant  shape. 
Like  Windsor  Castle  leaning  over  the  plain?  * 

Or,  as  an  instance  of  the  objective  type,  Mr.  Blun- 
den's  poem,  '  The  Pike,'  of  which  the  follov/ing  is 
the  second  half  : — 

* still  as  the  dead 

The  great  pike  lies,  the  murderous  patriarch 
Watching  the  waterpit  sheer-shelving  dark, 

Where  through   the  plash   his  lithe  bright   vassals   thread. 


THE    POET    AS    MORALIST  1/ 

*  The  rose-finned  roach  and  bluish  bream 
And  staring  ruffe  steal  up  the  stream 
Hard*  by  their  glutted  tyrant,  now 
Still  as  a  sunken  bough. 

*  He  on  the  sandbank  lies, 

Sunning  himself  long  hours 
With  stony  gorgon  eyes  : 

Westward  the  hot  sun  lowers. 

*  Sudden  the  gray  pike  changes,   and  quivering  poises  for 
slaughter ; 
Intense  terror  wakens  around  him,  the  shoals  scud  awry, 

but  there  chances 
A  chub  unsuspecting ;   the  prowling  fins  quicken,  in  fury 
he  lances; 
And  the  miller  that  opens  the  hatch  stands  amazed  at  the 
whirl  in  the  water.' 

Or,  if  both  types  be  sought  from  the  same  poet, 
Mr.  Siegfried  Sassoon's  or  Mr.  W.  J.  Turner's  v/ork 
would  afford  them. 

It  will  easily  be  seen  how%  under  the  influence 
of  this  desire  to  state  facts  rather  than  to  draw 
conclusions,  writers  are  led  to  an  elusiveness  and 
detachment  which  in  unskilful  hands  becomes  in- 
human. Miss  Charlotte  Mew,  for  instance,  has 
great  qualities  of  restraint  and  intellectual  grasp, 
but  her  work  would  be  very  much  improved  if  she 
could  be  a  little  less  just  and  indifferent.  Not,  of 
course,  that  modern  poets  never  draw  morals. 
They  often  do  so  in  the  heat  of  the  moment,  but 
never  with  the  satisfaction  of  a  Pope,  a  Dryden  or 
a  Milton. 

A  new  '  Man  of  Ross  '  and  a  new  '  The  Hind 
and  the  Panther '  are  inconceivable.     Mr.   Ralph 


1 8  THE    POET    AS    MORALIST 

Hodgson,  preaching  kindness  to  animals,  is  as  near 
as  we  come  to  '  The  Man  of  Ross,'  and  I  can  think 
of  nothing  better  for  an  '  opposite  number '  for  the 
religious  teaching  of  '  The  Hind  and  the  Panther,' 
than  Francis  Thompson's  '  The  Hound  of  Heaven.' 
And  this  is  neither,  strictly  speaking,  a  modern 
poem  nor  does  it  preach  any  but  the  universal  doc- 
trine of  mysticism. 

It  might  seem  at  first  sight  as  though  Mr.  Mase- 
field  draws  morals,  and  indeed  so  he  does  after  a 
fashion,  but  if  we  examine  them  carefully,  we  shall 
not  find  that  they  are  very  explicit.  Mr.  Masefield 
is  really  moved  only  by  the  faith  of  Keats  and 
Shelley,  a  mystic  belief  in  Beauty,  the  Holy  Grail 
of  the  poets.  But  this  fact  in  itself  well  illustrates 
the  balanced  temper  of  the  age,  for  one  of  the 
popular  accusations  levelled  against  his  work  is 
that  it  is  unnecessarily  ugly.  So  scrupulous  is  Mr. 
Masefield  in  stating  the  case  against  himself. 


Chapter  III 

ANNO  DOMINI  AND  THE  EXOTIC 

We  saw  in  the  last  chapter  how  a  desire  for  frank- 
ness and  an  open  mind  have  lead  the  modern  poet 
to  treat  a  good  many  subjects  which  have  either 
never  before  been  treated  in  verse  at  all,  or  have 
not  been  so  treated  for  a  couple  of  centuries.  To 
these  factors  also,  of  course,  are  due  a  good  deal 
of  what  some  people  complain  of  as  the  exotic 
element  in  modern  poetry.  But,  of  course,  some 
of  this  '  oddness  '  is  due  to  actual  facts  of  Anno 
Domini.  In  1922  the  poet  finds  that  most  of  the 
obvious  similes  have  been  made,  most  of  the  clearly 
appropriate  phrases  coined  and  passed  from  hand 
to  hand  till  they  are  too  much  effaced  for  the  poet's 
treasury.  This  has  bred  a  fastidiousness  which, 
acting  on  different  minds,  has  had  opposite  results. 
To  find  instances  among  some  of  the  few  long 
poems  of  to-day,  its  effect  upon  Mr.  W.  J.  Turner 
in  '  Paris  and  Helen,'  upon  Mr.  Shanks  in  '  The 
Queen  of  China,'  and  '  The  Island  of  Youth,'  upon 
Mr.  Squire  in  '  The  Birds  '  and  '  Rivers,'  upon  Mr. 
Sturge  Moore  in  '  Danae  '  has  been  to  produce  a 
certain  charming  attenuation  and  rem.oteness. 

Let  us  try  to  imagine  to  ourselves  a  sort  of 
synthetic  Victorian  poem  which  will  have  somxCthing 
in  it  of  '  Maud,'  of  '  Two  in  a  Gondola,'  of  '  Woke 
Hill,'  of  '  Christmas  Rose,'  of  The  Golden  Market,' 


20  ANNO  DOMINI  AND  THE  EXOTIC 

of  *  Sonnets  from  the  Portugese/  and  the  tradition 
both  of  'Paradise  Lost'  and  'The  Prelude.' 
Imagine  this  composite  creature  moving  along  in 
the  middle  of  the  road.  Mr.  Squire,  Mr.  Sturge 
Moore,  Mr.  Shanks  and  Mr.  Turner  were,  in  the 
poems  Vv^e  have  cited,  endeavouring  to  pass  it  on 

^ihe  right — that  is  to  say,  by  means  of  greater 
elegance,  by  means  of  less  obvious  effects,  by  the 
avoidance  of  cliches,  by  being,  as  it  were,  more 
civilised.  Mr.  Masefield,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
'  Reynard  the  Fox  '  and  '  Dauber,'  and  Mr.  Las- 
celles  Abercrombie,  in  almost  all  his  works,  have 

.tried  to  pass  on  the  left;  that  is  to  say,  they  have 
tried  to  be  more  fundamental,  stronger,  to  achieve 
more  force  and  drive,  to  show  beauty  and  idealism 
(if  they  show  them  at  all)  as  rising  not  only  from 
man's  most  elegant  emotions,  but  from  their  most 
primxitive  passions.  The  many  failures  of  the 
right-hand  group  suffer  from  anaemia ;  those  of  the 
left-hand  group  are  only  too  full  of  blood, — of 
curses  and  '  thick  ears.'  The  two  following  pieces 
of  verse  are,  to  my  mind,  successful  examples 
respectively  of  the  right  and  the  left-hand  groups. 
The  first  is  from  '  The  Queen  of  China '  and  the 
other  from  a  poem  by  Mr.  Lascelles  Abercrombie. 

*  Oh,  woe,  woe,  woe  on  China.     Now  is  all 
The  fabric  of  the  high-arched  kingdom  gone 
And  the  fair  Provinces',  the  Mountain  Province, 
The  Province  of  the  Plain,  the  River  Province, 
Tlie  Border  Countries  and  the  teeming  Port, 
The  Cities  where  the  wise  old  Viceroys  rule. 
Shaking   their   honoured    governmental   heads  .   .   .* 


ANNO    DOMINI    AND    THE    EXOTIC  21 

'  A  little  brisk  grey  slattern  of  a  woman, 
Pattering  along  in  her  loosie-heeied  clogs, 
Pusht  the  brass-barr'd  door  of  a  public  house. 
The  spring  went  hard  against  her;    hand  and  knee 
Shoved  their  weak  best.     As  the  door  poised  ajar, 
Hullabaloo  of  talking  men  burst  out, 
A  pouring  babble  of  inflamed  palaver, 
And  over-ridinj3f  it  and  shouted  down 
High  words,  jeering'  or  downright,  broken  like 
Crests  that  leap  and  stumble  in  rushing  water. 
Just  as  the  door  went  wide  and  she  stept  in, 
*'  She  cannot  do  it !  "  one  was  balling  out : 
A  glaring  hulk  of  flesh  with  a  bull's  voice. 
He  finger 'd  with  his  neckerchief,  and  stretcht 
His  throat  to  ease  the  anger  of  dispute. 
Then  spat  to  put  a  full  stop  to  the  matter. 

*  The  little  woman  waited,  with  one  hand 
Propping  the  door,  and  smiled  at  the  loud  man. 
They  saw  her  then ;   and  the  sight  was  enough 
To  gag  the  speech  of  every  drinker  there  : 
The  din  fell  down  like  something  chopt  off  short. 
Blank  they  all  wheel' d  towards  her,  with  their  mouths 
Still  gaping  as  though  full  of  voiceless  words. 
She  let  the  door  slam  to ;    and  all  at  ease. 
Amused,  her  smile  twinkling  about  her  eyes, 
Went  forward  :    they  made  room;  for  her  quick  enough. 
Her  chin  just  topt  the  counter :  she  gave  in 
Her  bottle  to  the  fK)tboy,  tuckt  it  back. 
Full  of  bright  tawny  ale,  under  her  arm, 
Rapt  down  the  coppers  on  the  planisht  zinc. 
And  turned  :    and  no  word  spoken  all  the  while. ' 

I  think  it  is  almost  certain  that  to  a  great  extent 
these  opposite  effects,  or  if  you  will  affectations,  of 
style,  have  sprung  from  a  single  cause;  Anno 
Domini.  If  these  poets  had  lived  in  the  time  of 
Chaucer,  Gower,  and  Dunbar,  they  would  probably 


2  2  ANNO    DOMINI    AND    THE    EXOTIC 

have  begun  every  poem,  as  did  those  writers,  with 
an  invocation  to  Spring  : — 

*  In  May  as  that  Aurora  did  upspring: 
With  crystal  eye  chasing  the  cloudes'   sable.' 

And  this  with  great  satisfaction  to  themselves  and 
their  readers.  It  is,  of  course,  perfectly  untrue 
to  say  '  It  is  too  late  to  be  ambitious.'  The  Child- 
ren of  the  Muses  are  a  nomadic  tribe  and  when  they 
have  exhausted  the  fertility  of  one  region,  it  is  easy 
for  them  to  fold  their  tents  and  move  on  across  what 
are,  it  seems,  the  endless  tracts  of  human  know^ledge 
and  conjecture.  All  those  of  a  conservative  turn 
of  mind,  those  v/ho  are  temperamentally  inclined  to 
regard  the  words  *  fickleness  '  and  '  movement '  as 
synonyms  must  try  to  take  into  consideration  the 
fact  that  there  are  more  reasons  for  departure  from 
the  old  ways  than  the  one  for  which  they  are  forever 
on  the  watch — Lack  of  respect  for  the  Traditions 
of  the  Elders. 


Chapter  IV 

THE   NEW  MOVEMENT  AND   NEW 
STANDARDS 

I  HAVE  said  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  modern 
poetic  movement  a  good  deal  of  hesitancy,  of  intel- 
lectual modesty,  and  of  experimentalism  was  to  be 
found  in  poetic  technique.  One  month  a  poet 
would  employ  an  elaborate  rhyme  scheme  and  throw 
about  a  profusion  of  brightly-coloured  syllables; 
the  next  he  would  confine  himself  to  words  of  one 
syllable  and  lines  of  one  v/ord.  He  would  be 
minutely  introspective  and  meticulously  objective 
by  turns.  Mr.  W.  J.  Turner  began  by  writing 
obscure,  difficult  lyrics  about  paleolithic  cave-men 
or  the  cave-man  that  lurks  within  us.  Mr.  Graves, 
to  ease  a  war-harassed  mind,  wrote  fantastic  bucolic 
poems.  Mr.  Robert  Nichols,  confronted  by  the 
war,  showed,  in  spirit  and  technique,  the  journalistic 
reaction  of  the  reporter ;  so  did  Mr.  W.  W.  Gibson. 
The  Sitv/ells  (Messrs.  Osbert  and  Sacheverell  and 
Miss  Edith)  endeavoured,  like  Mr.  Graves,  to 
escape,  but  this  time  into  an  atmosphere  of  com- 
media  de  arte.  But  Mr.  Turner's  latest  consider- 
able piece  of  work  is  '  Paris  and  Helen,'  a  smooth 
classical  narrative  poem.  Mr.  Graves  has  lately 
tried  to  get  back  to  the  atmosphere  of  real  life. 
Mr.  Nichols'  best  work  is  now  generally  reflective 


24      THE   NEW   MOVEMENT   AND  NEW    STANDARDS 

and  written  in  a  flowing  style,  and  Mr.  Osbert  Sit- 
welFs  output  is  often  one  of  '  reasonable  '  poems. 
The  new  movement,  now  feeling  more  secure  in  the 
needlessness  of  v/orship,  dares  a  glance  at  the 
merits  of  the  more  regular  of  its  predecessors. 

Psychologists  tell  us  that  love  and  hate,  or  blind 
reverence  and  violent  self-assertion, .  are  opposite 
manifestations  of  the  same  emotions.  This  is  cer- 
tainly true  in  the  case  of  such  group  psychology  as 
we  encounter  in  the  consideration  of  aesthetic  move- 
ments. At  first  the  poets  of  the  new  movement 
Vv^ere,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  inclined  to  feel  a 
strong  love-hate  emotion  in  regard  to  such  writers 
as  Tennyson,  and  to  feel  the  obverse  of  the  general 
reverential  attitude  in  regard  to  his  mxoral  attitude 
and  technical  methods.  Now  that  the  exaggerated 
love  and  reverence  have  disappeared,  so  have  the 
violent  hate  and  self-assertion.  For  though  the 
influence  of  these  emotions  on  the  new  movement 
has  been  greatly  exaggerated,  they  did  exist,  at 
least,  in  certain  writers.  For  example,  Mr.  Ezra 
Pound,  one  of  the  brilliant  but  somewhat  negative 
and  sterile  precursors  of  the  modern  movement, 
felt  them  overwhelmingly. 

The  new  movement  seems,  in  fact,  in  the  last 
two  years  to  have  reached  som.ething  of  a  state  of 
equilibrium.  There  was  a  charming,  invigorating 
freshness  about  the  spring,  and  in  som.e  cases  we 
may  regret  the  ^  early  manner  '  of  this  or  that  writer. 
But  on  the  whole  the  modern  tradition  has  probably 
grown  to  a  state  more  promising  for  the  production 
of  good  work  than  it  was,  say  in  191 8  or  19 19. 


THE   NEW   MOVEMENT   AND   NEW    STANDARDS       25 

)  It  is  very  difficult  to  say  in  what  this  state  of 
equilibrium  consists,  or  how  the  present  varies  from 
the  earlier  state  of  the  poetic  movement.  The 
obvious  thing  would  be  to  say  that  the  new  poets 
have  become  less  extreme  and  that  they  now  appre- 
ciate the  value  of  '  centralness'  This  no  doubt  is 
in  part  true,  but  it  is  also  probably  true  that  our 
— the  reader's — conception  of  the  poetic  '  centre  ' 
has  slipped  more  than  a  little.  For  when  we  come- 
to  examine  the  facts,  there  are  plenty  of  ultra- 
modern poems  being  written.  Is  it  that  the  poets 
are  more  urbane,  or  that  even  the  most  timid  of  us 
have  grown  accustomed  to  them?  At  any  rate,  we 
believe  that  poets  and  critics  have  reached  a  stage 
in  the  movement  where  they  have  achieved  the 
judgment  of  a  modern  poem  on  its  mxcrits. 

We  do  not  love  or  hate  '  Wheels  '  or  '  Coterie  ' ; 
we  distinguish  between  the  bad  and  good  poems 
which  they  contain.  This  is  largely  because  the 
volume  of  modern  verse  now  enables  us  to  guess 
by  a  comparative  process  what  the  poet  is  trying 
to  do,  and  to  expect  of  a  given  poem  only  the  par- 
ticular qualities  for  which  the  poet  has  striven  : — 

*  When   they   said,   ^*  Does   it  trot?'* 
He  said,   *'  Certainly  not, 
It's  a   Mopsican-Flopsican   bear  !  "  ' 

We  no  longer  say  :  '  This  poem  is  unlike  ''  The 
Dream  of  Fair  Women,"  therefore  it  is  good  '  (or 
'  bad,'  as  the  case  may  be).  A  poem  may  have 
noble  qualities  which,  to  pursue  the  analogy,  are 
incompatible  with  trotting.     This  critics  and  fellow- 


26      THE   NEW   MOVEMENT   AND   NEW    STANDARDS 

poets  recognize.  The  poet  is  now  absolutely  free 
to  write  '  Mopsican-Flopsican  '  poetry,  but  with  this 
warning,  that  we  know  to  what  heights  such  a  poem 
ought  to  rise.  Being  let  off  the  trotting  we  expect 
of  the  creature  performances  of  equal  difficulty. 
We  have,  in  fact,  achieved  pretty  generally  a 
new  standard  of  criticism — flexible,  liberal — well 
adapted  to  its  purpose.  Alas !  that  it  must  ossify 
like  its  unlamented  predecessor,  and,  after 
strangling  a  few  promising  infants  of  the  next,  the 
unborn  poet  generation,  be  carted  away  amid  public 
rejoicings. 

Is  there  positively  no  cure  for  human  fallibility? 
If  not,  let  us  at  least  not  fall  into  the  error  of  the 
Victorians  who  would  honestly  have  declared  that 
they  suffered  from  no  such  malady. 


PART    II 

(FOR   PHILOSOPHERS) 


*  That's  the  test  for  the  literary  mind/  said  Denis,  *  the 
feeling-  of  magic,  the  sense  that  words  have  power.  .  .  . 
With  language  man  created  a  whole  new  universe;  what 
wonder  if  he  loved  words  and  attributed  power  to  them  ! 
With  fitted,  harmonious  words  the  magicians  summoned 
rabbits  out  of  empty  hats  and  spirits  froim  the  elements. 
Their  descendants,  the.,  literary  men,  still  go  on  with  the 
process,  morticing  theii^*  verbal  formulas  together,  and  before 
the  power  of  the  finished  spell,  trembling  with  delight  and 
awe.  Rabbits  out  of  empty  hats  ?  No,  their  spells  are  more 
subtly  powerful,  for  they  evoke  emotions  out  of  empty  minds. 
Formulated  by  their  art,  the  most  insipid  statements  become 
enormously  significant.  For  example,  I  proffer  the  constata- 
tion,  **  Black  ladders  lack  bladders."  A  self-evident  truth, 
one  on  which  it  v/ould  not  have  been  worth  while  to  insist, 
had  I  chosen  to  formulate  it  in  such  words  as  Les  echelles 
moires  manquent  de  vessie.  But  since  I  put  it  as  I  do, 
**  Black  ladders  lack  bladders,"  it  becomes,  for  all  its  self- 
evidence,  significant,  unforgettable,  moving.  The  creation 
by  word-power  of  something  out  of  nothing — ^what  is  that  but 
magic?  And,  I  may  add,  what  is  that  but  literature?  Half 
the  world's  greatest  poetry  is  simply  Les  echelles  noires  man- 
quent de  vessie,  translated  intoi  magic  significance  as  *'  Black 
ladders  lack  bladders."  and  you  can't  appreciate  words.  I'm 
sorry  for  you.' 

Mr.  Aldous  Huxley. 


Chapter  V 
THE   FUNCTION  OF   THE  ARTS 

I 

It  is  very  difficult  to  define  a  work  of  art,  or  to  say 
that  Pythagoras  was  labouring  under  a  misunder- 
standing when  he  sacrificed  a  yoke  of  oxen  to  the 
\ Muses  on  working  out  the  Forty-seventh  Proposi- 
tion. A  fairly  acceptable  notion  is  that  in  creating 
a  work  of  art  we  are  trying  to  make  something 
beautiful.  This  applied  to  the  arts  of  literature 
would  connote  that  we  were  not  only  trying  to 
express  a  mxCaning,  but  that  we  were  trying  to 
express  beauty  as  well.  Or  the  emphasis  might 
even  be  reversed  and  the  artist  might  affirm  that  he 
was  trying  to  create  beauty  and  that  the  meaning — 
the  overt  content — of  his  work  was  only  incidental 
to  its  beauty.  But  this  contrasting  of  '  meaning  * 
and  beauty  by  no  means  covers  the  whole  ground. 
There  are  mxany  beautiful  episodes  in  '  Macbeth/ 
but  we  do  not  feel  that  a  statement  that  what  Shake- 
speare was  trying  to  express  was  the  tragedy  of  the 
murdering  of  Duncan  by  the  Thane  of  Caw^dor  and 
Lady  Macbeth,  plus  beauty,  would  satisfactorily 
define  the  play. 

We  shall  find  that  our  definition  will  cover  a 
much  wider  range  of  facts  if  Vv^e  say  that  Art  is  the 
effort  to  express,  alongside  a  rational  meaning, 
something  of  those  forces  which  lie  in  that  great 


30  THE    FUNCTION   OF   THE    ARTS 

hinterland  of  consciousness,  the  inexpressible.  It 
would  be  possible  to  treat  the  story  of  Macbeth 
(this  has  indeed  been  done  on  more  than  one  occa- 
sion) scientifically  as  a  psychological  '  case/  but 
the  appeal  here  is  shifted  from  the  reader's  emotions 
to  his  intellect.  The  beauties  of  Shakespeare's 
treatment  are,  as  it  were,  the  feathers  which  wing 
the  arrow  of  the  tragedy  till  it  is  carried  straight 
through  the  intellect  into  the  substructure  of  our 
consciousness.  In  Macbeth's  account  of  the 
murder — the  speech  w^hich  ends  : 

*  I  had  most  need  of  blessing- 
But  Amen  stuck  in  my  throat.' 

we  are  moved  and  shaken  in  a  way  which  would 
be  beyond  any  intellectual  statement  of  the  dangers 
of  Macbeth's  position.  The  peculiar  atmosphere 
which  pervades  the  Courtyard  Scene,  and  which 
closes  in  upon  us  as  soon  as  Lady  Macbeth  strikes 
her  signal  on  the  bell,  is  one  that  cannot  be  pro- 
duced except  by  means  that  we  should  all  readily 
grant  were  artistic.  A  so-called  plain  statement  of 
the  facts  would  obviously  fail  to  acquaint  the  reader 
Vv^ith  the  outstanding  fact — that  is  the  peculiar 
emotional  tension — which  made  Macbeth's  act 
differ  absolutely  from  murders  like  that  of  Hare  and 
Burke. 

Mme.  Tamara  Karsavina,  in  an  interview  with 

a  reporter  a  year  or  so  ago,  put  the  case  of  the  arts 

in  a  nutshell.      The  reporter  asked  her  what  she 

meant  by  a  particular  fas  seul  that  she  danced ;  to 

.-^  which  she  replied,  '  But  if  I  could  tell  you  in  a 


THE    FUNCTION   OF   THE   ARTS  3 1 

sentence,  do  you  think  I  should  take  the  very  great 
trouble  of  dancing  it  ?  '  There  are,  of  course,  many 
other  notions  besides  artistic  ones;  there  are,  for 
example,  many  scientific  facts — chemical  reactions, 
mathematical  equations — which  cannot  be  put  into 
two  words,  but  that  is  a  different  proposition ;  they 
could  in  time  be  explained  to  any  sufficiently  intel- 
ligent person.  But  if  Mme.  Karsavina  had  talked 
to  the  reporter  for  a  month,  she  could  not  have  put 
into  so  many  words  what  she  meant  by  her  dance, 
for  the  meaning  was,  we  may  be  sure,  concerned 
with  curves  of  m.otion — a  flowing  undulated  move- 
ment constantly  interrupted  by  an  effect  of  rigidity, 
an  impression  perhaps  of  the  balance  of  muscular 
force  supporting  a  weight,  succeeded  by  a  pose 
expressing  lassitude — a  sort  of  liquification  of  the 
body, — staccato  movements  alternating  with  flow- 
ing legato  ones.  If  dancing  was  barred,  notions 
of  this  sort  could  only  obviously  have  been 
expressed  through  some  other  aesthetic  form.  She 
might  conceivably  have  written  for  that  reporter  a 
poem  which,  though  of  course  not  describing  the 
dance,  would  have  conveyed  to  him  similar  truths 
about  form  and  motion.  She  might  more  easily 
have  said  what  she  meant  on  the  piano,  or  have 
expressed  it  in  the  inter-actions  of  light  and  shade, 
voids  and  solids,  tension  and  relaxation,  of  a  pic- 
ture or  a  building. 

The  fact  that  there  are  many  things  that  can- 
not be  dealt  with  by  any  sort  of  direct  statement 
is  again  rather  well  illustrated  in  the  domain  of 
architecture.     A  working  drawing,  perfectly  accu- 


32  THE    FUNCTION   OF   THE   ARTS 

rate  in  every  detail,  of  an  unfamiliar  building  will 
give  even  a  trained  architect  very  little  idea  of 
what  the  building  looked  like;  whereas  a  charcoal 
sketch  in  perspective,  in  which  perhaps  all  sorts 
of  non-existent  incidentals  had  been  introduced — 
a  floating  cloud  to  cast  an  emphasising  shadow,  an 
imaginary  tree,  a  group  of  onlookers  to  give  the 
scale — ^will  make  a  picture  from  which  it  is  per- 
fectly easy  to  gain  a  notion  of  the  appearance  of 
the  building  and  the  intentions  of  the  architect. 
The  fact  is  that  communication  betw^een  one  human 
being  and  another  ceases  to  be  simple  directly  v^e 
go  beyond  the  desire  to  impart  to  our  neighbours 
the  fact  that  w^e  are  experiencing  such  things  as 
hunger,  thirst,  love  or  hate. 

The  most  superficial  study  of  metaphysics 
brings  home  to  us  the  fact  that  every  one  of  us  is 
shut  into  his  own  private  consciousness.  None  of 
my  experiences  can  ever  be  exactly  your  experi- 
ences, for  an  experience  is  a  compound  made  up  of 
that  which  is  perceived  and  certain  qualities  of  the 
perceiver.  This  is,  of  course,  perfectly  obvious  in 
the  case  of  a  colour-blind  man  and  a  man  of  normal 
vision  seeing  the  same  landscape.  Or  again,  if 
two  persons  of  different  temperament  chance  to 
have  shared  an  experience,  to  one  it  may  prove  a 
joke,  to  the  other  a  tragedy.  Let  us,  as  an  example, 
suppose  D'Artagnan  and  William  Cowper  together 
in  a  street  fight  in  which  a  man  is  killed.  To  one 
it  would  be  a  slightly  exhilarating  everyday  affair, 
to  the  other  a  terrible  spiritual  experience. 

All  literature  and  a  great  many  other  '  non-pro- 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  ARTS  33 

ductive  '  human  activities  can  be  likened  to  the 
efforts  of  a  prisoner — shut  into  the  cell  of  his  separ- 
ate consciousness — to  communicate  with  his  fellows. 
We  have  an  instinct,  as  strong  as  it  is  sound,  to  share 
each  other's  experiences  and  to  pool  any  knowledge 
that  any  of  us  may  have  gained.  Though  we  are  each 
thus  separately  confined,  we  are  aware  that  we  are  so 
enclosed  and  we  can  allow  for  differences  in  the 
aspect  of  life  as  seen  from  another  cell.  The  more 
sophisticated  of  us  can  even  allow  for  the  modifi- 
cations in  our  own  point  of  view  in  a  given  matter 
made  by  our  own  acknowledged  opinions  on 
similar  affairs.  For  instance,  I  was  the  other  day 
discussing  the  Gilbert  and  Sullivan  Operas  with 
a  man  who  said  that  he  was  somehow  rather  hostile 
to  them.  He  had  tracked  his  hostility  down  to  his 
dislike  of  Gilbert's  attitude  towards  women.  He 
is  a  strong  feminist.  Being  now  aware  of  the 
source  of  his  prejudice,  he  is,  of  course,  able  to 
a  great  extent  to  discount  it  and  give  Gilbert  the 
credit  for  jokes  which  dp  not  amuse  my  friend  be- 
cause of  his  bias. 

But  there  is  a  much  more  difficult  problem.  It 
would  appear  that  our  consciousness  and  its  know- 
ledge of  our  own  motives  very  much  resembles  our 
ordinary  sense  perceptions.  For  example,  let  us 
take  as  an  analogy  our  ordinary  perception  of 
sound.  Our  ears  only  give  us  knowledge  of  a  com- 
paratively short  section  out  of  the  middle  of  an 
entire  range  of  sounds.  There  are  a  great  number 
of  sound  vibrations  that  are  too  deep  in  tone  for  us 
to  hear,  and  there  are  a  proportionate  number  that 


34  THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  ARTS 

are  too  shrill.  The  world  is  certainly  echoing  with 
sounds  that  we  cannot  hear.  We  are  in  very  much 
the  same  position  in  the  matter  of  self-knowledge. 
We  are  constantly  actuated  in  our  conduct  by 
motives  which  are  not  in  the  least  clear  to  our- 
selves. Proverbial  wisdom  is  well  aware  of  this 
fact. 

*  I  do  not  like  thee,  Dr.  Fell, 
The  reason  why  I  cannot  tell, 

But  this  I  know,  and  know  full  well, 
I  do  not  like  thee,   Dr.  Fell.' 

We  are  reading,  a  vague  sense  of  uneasiness 
and  restlessness  comes  over  us,  but  very  likely 
except  with  the  help  of  some  outside  agent,  such 
as  the  clock,  we  cannot  tell  whether  it  is  a 
change  of  author,  or  our  lunch  that  we  want.  To 
take  another  very  simple  case,  a  young  man  may 
find  in  himself  a  sudden  enthusiasm  for  a 
particular  career,  or  a  particular  line  of  study,  and 
be  honestly  unconscious  that  he  is  inspired  neither 
by  industry,  nor  a  love  of  learning,  but  the  hope 
that  in  the  pursuit  of  this  work  or  study  he  may 
constantly  meet  a  particular  young  woman.  Again 
we  can  probably  many  of  us  with  an  effort  recall 
likes  and  dislikes  founded  on  some  incident  of  our 
childhood.  Few  of  us,  for  example,  can  revisit  the 
scenes  of  a  happy  childhood  without  a  definite 
emotional  recollection.  The  tree  up  which  we 
climbed  with  the  kitten  and  crowned  him  Duke  of 
Catoria  with  oak  leaves  will,  as  long  as  we  can 
remember  the  incident,  never  be  quite  a  common 
tree  to  us.     There  are  probably  qiiite  as  many  of 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    THE    ARTS  35 

those  childish  incidents  that  are  still  valid  enough 
to  be  acted  upon,  but  whose  actual  occurrence  we 
have  quite  forgotten.  Professor  Freud  would  say 
that  they  were  not  forgotten,  but  repressed  because 
they  were  unpleasant.  Mr.  Bertram  Russell, 
bearing  in  mind  the  unpalatable  theories  of  the 
Behaviourists,  would  tell  us  that  they  are  uncon- 
scious because  it  was  natural  for  all  our  impulses 
to  be  unconscious,  and  that  it  was  only  about  certain 
very  clear  and  obvious  mental  processes  that  we 
were  able  to  reason  at  all.  According  to  him  the 
process  would  be  that  Man  when  he  began  to 
reason  had  caught  himself  performing  some  action 
and  had  then  promptly  begun  to  wonder  why  he 
was  doing  it.  Sometimes  he  hit  upon  the  right 
reason,  sometimes  upon  a  ludicrously  wrong  one. 
When  in  one  case  he  hit  upon  the  wrong  reason,  and 
in  a  second  case  proceeded  to  act  rationally  upon 
his  assumptions,  it  becomes  easier  to  understand  the 
very  curious  embrolios  into  which  Man's  thinking 
and  conduct  have  got  him  from  time  to  time. 
Primitive  society's  marvellously  effective  mutual 
arrangements  for  the  cutting  of  throats  and  the 
general  making  of  life  intolerable, — becomes,  so 
regarded, — a  little  less  amazing.  But  whether  we 
hold  Professor  Freud's  doctrine  of  the  suppressed 
subconsciousness  or  prefer  the  theory  of  the  ocean 
of  subconscious  action  out  of  which  Man  has 
managed  to  rear  little  islands  of  consciousness,  or 
whether  glancing  at  the  experiences  of  our  friends 
and  our  own  conduct  and  the  history  of  mankind, 
we  merely  conclude  generally  that  man  is  a  very 


36  THE    FUNCTION    OF    THE    ARTS 

odd  and  a  far  from  rational  creature,  we  must  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  for  each  person  there  is  a 
region  of  being — a  spring  of  conduct,  which  is 
doubly  hidden  away.  Our  brother's  conscious 
experiences  are  hidden  from  us,  how  much  more 
his  subconscious  experiences,  which  in  the  natural 
course  of  things  are  hidden  even  from  himself? 

Human  converse  and  the  whole  body  of  literature 
and  science  are  concerned  to  speak  across  the  first 
barrier.  It  is  a  more  especial  function  of  the  arts — 
painting,  music,  sculpture,  architecture,  poetry — to 
deal  with  the  obscure  but  potent  forces  that  lie 
behind  the  second  : — 

*  Fallings  from  us,  vanlshings  ; 
Blank  misgivings  of  a  creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realised. ' 

As  to  which  of  the  Arts  fulfils  this  function  most 
successfully,  or,  as  we  have  been  accustomed  to  say, 
which  Art  is  the  '  best '  there  has  been  never- 
ending,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  quite  needless 
discussion.  There  is  no  more  a  stock  '  best  art ' 
than  there  is  a  stock  '  best '  human  being.  Your 
consciousness  and  subconsciousness  may  be  best 
approached  visually,  the  next  man's  through  the 
ear,  and  mine  by  the  most  intangible  way  of  all — 
the  w^ay  of  literary  art  in  general  and  of  poetry  in 
paricular. 

Every  poet  and  every  critic  is  agreed  that  the 
emotions  ar(e  especially  the  province  of  poetry. 
Now  the  emotions  would  seem  to  be  in  a  special 
degree  psychological  amphibians,  sometimes  mov- 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    THE    ARTS  37 

ing,  that  is  to  say,  on  the  plane  of  the  conscious, 
sometimes  on  the  plane  of  the  unconscious. 
Beauty,  love,  hate,  anger,  pity,  and  terror,  are  the 
devices  we  use  in  poetry.  They  are  not  only  the  sub- 
ject matters  of  poetry,  but  are  also  its  instruments. 
The  double  function  fulfilled  by  beauty  and 
emotion  has  led  to  a  great  deal  of  confusion  of 
thought.  Round  this  question,  whether  the  beauty 
of  a  poem  was  its  aim  and  end  or  a  means  to  some 
ulterior  aim  or  end,  and,  if  so,  what  the  ulterior  aim 
or  end  might  be,  has  centred  a  great  deal  of  circular 
thinking.  '  Beauty  '  and  '  Rapture  '  are  like  the 
little  steering  propeller  on  an  aerial  bomb — at  once 
a  means  of  directing  the  missile  and  itself  part  of 
what  is  projected.  Or  if  the  reader  prefers  a  more 
traditional  metaphor,  the  poet's  thought  becomes 
through  beauty  and  rapture  like  a  feathered  arrow 
which  is  able  to  transfix  at  once  the  intellect,  the 
emotions,  and  the  deeper  consciousness  which  lies 
below  these  regions. 


II 

The  need  for  expresson  is  so  implanted  in  our 
nature  that  the  reader  has  probably  hardly  put  to 
himself  what  might  be  supposed  to  be  the  natural 
question,  '  Why  all  this  fuss  about  expression,  why 
should  (as  you  and  the  psychologist  seem  to  put  it) 
*' Deep  call  unto  deep"  in  this  gratuitous  way.'^' 
The  answer  is  that  we  are  gregarious  creatures,  and 
this  deep-seated  desire  for  expression  is  in  itself  a 


38  THE    FUNCTION    OF    THE    ARTS 

non-conscious  piece  of  reasoning.  There  is  some- 
thing horrible  to  the  human  mind  in  the  idea  of 
complete  loneliness  and  solitude.  The  desire  for 
companionship  has  the  compulsive  strength  of  a 
biological  necessity. 

As  Mr.  Harold  Child  somewhere  very  justly 
says,  a  man  who  had  grown  up  alone  on  a  desert 
island  could  have  extraordinarily  little  knowledge 
of  himself,  for  he  would  possess  no  standard  of 
comparison.  In  comparison  and  the  subsequent 
ranging  of  opinions  or  events  into  categories,  lies, 
the  metaphysicians  tell  us,  the  entire  and  only 
method  by  which  man  acquires  knowledge.  You 
cannot  have  a  category  of  one,  you  cannot  compare 
unity.  The  man  on  the  desert  island,  however 
ingeniously  introspective,  could  only  compare  his 
reactions  on  Tuesday  with  his  reactions  on  Monday, 
and  know  that  on  one  day  he  v/as  good  humoured, 
but  on  the  next  took  a  pessimistic  view  of  things. 
This  would  obviously  not  take  him  very  far.  A 
man's  method  of  finding  out  about  himself  is  in  fact 
to  discover  that  he  is  cleverer  than  Jones,  but  not  so 
clever  as  Smith,  lazier  than  Robinson,  but  a  better 
walker  than  Snooks,  better  at  dominoes  than 
Brown,  though  Green  is  cleverer  when  it  comes  to 
Bradshaw.  And  so  on,  till  we  come  to  consider  the 
most  subtle  attributes  of  mind  and  character.  Not 
only  does  each  generation,  by  means  of  books  and 
tradition,  to  some  extent,  stand  on  the  shoulders, 
or,  at  least,  the  toes  of  the  generation  that  comes 
behind  it;  it  learns  through  contemporary  minds. 
The  world  is  like  the  laboratory  of  some  great  scien- 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    THE    ARTS  39 

tist,  whose  ten  pupils  each  experiment  for  a  year 
along  converging  lines,  each  with  special  aptitude  or 
special  knowledge,  each  contributing  a  factor  to 
the  discovery  of  some  scientific  law  which  would 
have  taken  any  one  of  them  at  least  ten  years  to 
work  out  alone.  Each  of  them  is  thus  able,  because 
he  can  communicate  with  his  fellows,  to  add  to  his 
mind  the  complete  piece  of  knowledge ;  he  gets  the 
result  of  ten  years'  work  at  the  price  of  one  year's 
work.  If  our  minds  are  to  fulfil  their  powers  of 
growth  it  must,  v/e  realise,  be  through  co-operation 
with  other  minds.  Not  only  is  there  this  individual 
need  to  be  satisfied,  but  we  all  instinctively  feel  both 
edges  of  the  proverb,  '  Tous  comprendre,  c'est  tons 
pardonner.'  We  have  the  double  feeling  that  our 
profound  ignorance  of  each  other  is  dangerous. 
'  Will  he  understand  my  motives  ?  '  asks  Timidity, 
on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other.  Suspicion, 
'  What  does  the  man  mean  by  all  this  ?  '  The 
shrewdest  and  most  practical  people,  people  who 
have  as  little  love  as  is  possible  in  any  human  being 
of  abstract  knowledge,  will  almost  always  admit 
that  as  a  means  to  success,  or,  as  a  recreation,  their 
one  study  is  Human  Nature.  In  order  that  they 
may  not  be  misunderstood,  and  in  order  that  they 
may  understand  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  them 
to  have  some  idea  of  how  other  men's  minds  work. 
In  a  comparatively  primitive  state  of  society  some 
such  study  is  necessary  to  an  individual  in  order 
that  the  other  man  may  not  fly  at  his  throat.  In 
civilised  society  where  our  relations  with  our  fellows 
become  more  and  more  subtle,  and  as  we  come  to 


40  THE    FUNCTION    OF    THE    ARTS 

deal  with  more  and  more  complicated  ideas,  we  more 
and  more  feel  the  necessity  of  understanding  our 
fellows  and  ourselves  as  well  as  we  can.  We  begin 
to  feel  subconsciously  uneasy  at  the  idea  of  all  this 
loose  dynamite,  this  uncomprehended  human  nature 
— our  own  and  other  people's — which  lies  scattered 
about  the  world  ready  to  be  ignited.  We  probably 
read  the  works  of  a  poet  for  our  pleasure  in  the 
beauty  or  the  emotion  that  he  gives  us,  and  we  shall 
probably  never  be  reduced  consciously  to  reading 
his  works  in  order  to  gain  some  light  upon  our  own 
or  other  people's  motives.  But  I  believe  a  great 
deal  of  our  pleasure  in  poetry  really  comes  from 
this  source.  A  very  simple  phenomenon  has  prob- 
ably puzzled  miost  of  us  at  one  time  or  another. 
Why  is  it  that  we  apparently  experience  the  same 
little  shock  of  pleasure  in  reading  a  beautiful  poem, 
or  learning  a  scientific  fact.'^  Probably  to  a 
great  extent  because  the  two  things  are  the 
same.  In  acquiring  the  fact  and  in  reading 
the  poem,,  we  are  conscious  of  a  little  increment 
of  power  to  ourselves.  The  beauty  of  the 
poem  has  revealed  something  to  us,  we  are 
conscious  probably  only  of  the  beauty,  the  revela- 
tion perhaps  never  reaches  the  reasoning  plane  at 
all,  it  is  something  quite  intangible.  We  should 
describe  it  (if  we  were  not  checked  for  a  moment 
by  the  paradox  that  it  has  perhaps  come  to  us 
through  a  poem),  as  '  something  that  you  cannot  put 
into  words.' 

Let    him    who    feels    that    all    this    talk    of 
understanding,    this    stressing    of    the    notion    of 


THE    FUNCTION   OF    THE    ARTS  4 1 

communication  is  gratuitous  nonsense,  remember 
that  the  reasons  for  a  number  of  grave  industrial 
disputes,  a  quantity  of  divorces,  and  the  late  War 
are  still  matters  of  debate  and  conjecture.  Suppose 
that  to  understand  everything  were  in  fact  the 
ending  of  hatred? 


Chapter  VI 

THE  POETIC  METHOD 

That  the  functions  I  have  tried  to  outline  in 
the  last  chapter  are  in  fact  those  which  we  do 
demand  that  poetry  shall  fulfil,  is  I  think  borne 
out  by  our  dissatisfaction  with  a  great  deal 
of  what  we  are  compelled  to  admit  is  very  good 
verse.  It  is  the  vague  uneasiness  which  objects  to, 
say,  Pope's  '  Characters  of  Women,'  and  feels  that 
this  is  not  really  poetry  at  all.  And  if  this  express- 
ing of  the  inexpressible  is  indeed  one  of  the  chief 
functions  of  poetry,  we  have  to  admit  that  Pope's 
Epistle  hardly  fulfils  these  functions  at  all,  but  re- 
mains as  clear  and  logical  as  prose.  It  has  only  one 
thing  in  common  with  '  real  poetry,'  its  great  com- 
pression. Compression  is,  I  believe,  one  of  the 
expedients  by  which  poetry  is  enabled  to  fulfil  its 
special  function.  One  of  the  technical  characteris- 
tics of  poetry  and  music  is  obviously  that  the  whole 
work  of  art  is  not  presented  to  the  mind  in  an  in- 
stant. In  this  they  differ  from  the  figurative  arts, 
we  take  in  the  main  lines  of  statue,  building,  or  pic- 
ture, in  a  single  coup  d'oeil.  Music,  drama, 
poetry,  narrative,  and  the  dance  are  all  what 
we  might  call  progressive  arts;  we  may  sometimes 
speak  in  a  picture  of  certain  effects  leading  up 
to  certain  other  effects,  but  what  we  really  mean 
is  only  that  certain  expedients  are  used  to  lend 


THE    POETIC    METHOD  43 

force  and  emphasis  to  the  elements  of  the  com- 
position upon  which  the  artist  desires  that  we 
should  concentrate.  But  in  the  progressive  arts  we 
may  have  a  genuine  leading-up.  The  whole  is  a 
succession  of  parts,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the 
rate  at  which  these  parts  are  presented  to  us  may 
make  all  the  difference  to  our  perception  of  them. 
An  incompetent  executant,  who,  unable  to  deal  with 
a  chord  in  a  piece  of  music,  plays  it  note  by  note,  is 
not  playing  the  chord  at  all,  but  something  different. 
The  superimposing  of  one  sound  upon  another 
gives  us  a  whole  that  is  different  from  and  has  an 
existence  independent  of  the  parts  from  which  it  is 
made  up.  Now  a  use  of  words  in  a  state  as  it  were 
of  compression,  so  that  this  choral  or  super-imposed 
effect  is  produced,  is  one  of  the  devices  by  which 
very  special  effects  are  made  in  poetry.  In  prose 
the  interposition  of  the  smaller  parts  of  speech 
between  the  main  words  produces  what,  to  pursue 
our  musical  analogy,  is  something  like  an  arpeggio. 
Mr.  Roxburgh  in  his  essay,  '  The  Poetic  Proces- 
sion,' points  out  how  remarkable  is  the  effect  of  the 
compression  in  Keats's  '  Ode  to  a  Nightingale.' 

*  O  for  a  draught  of  vintage  !   that  hath  been 

Cooled  a  long  age  in  the  deep-del vedi  earth, 
Tasting  of  Flora  and  the  country  green, 

Dance,  and  Provencal  song,  and  sunburnt  mirth  ! 

*  O  for  a  beaker  full  of  the  warnii  South, 

Full  of  the  true,  the  blushful  Hippocrene, 
With  beaded  bubbles  winking  at  the  brim 
And  purple-stained  mouth  ; 
That  I  might  drink  and  leave  the  world  unseen, 
And  with  thee  fade  into  the  forest  dim  ...  * 


44  THE   POETIC   METHOD 

Mr.  Roxburgh  adds  that  he  tried  to  translate 
this  to  a  clever  Frenchman  who  could  make  nothing 
of  it.  '  How  could  wine  taste  of  mirth/  he  said, 
'and  how  could  mirth  be  sunburnt?'  Mr.  Rox- 
burgh had  necessarily  played  the  passage  to  him 
in  arpeggio,  and  the  effect  was  perfectly  different. 

In  prose  the  passage  would  have  to  go  some- 
thing like  this  : — 

'  A  stoop  of  wine.  Calling  up  a  white  sunlight,  a 
grey  powder  of  dust  on  the  leaves  of  vines  and  olives  on 
the  hillside. 

*  Very  cool  it  w^ould  be  that  Provencal  wine,  in  a 
chianti  flask,  perhaps,  or  an  earthenware  pitcher,  that 
had  been  buried  in  the  earth,  the  digging  spade  you 
fancy,  buried  toi  half  its  length.  O  for  a  draught  of 
such  a  vintage  !  It  would  taste  of  flowers ;  there  would 
be  an  aroma  of  the  green  country  about  it — 
nympths,  the  dance  under  the  trees  in  the  evening 
after  the  w^arm  Southern  day,  something  of  the  songs 
of  Provence  about  it.  Is  not  the  wine  the  work  of 
such  sun-burnt  merry-makers?  Indeed,  such  a  beaker 
would  be  full,  not  of  vvine,  but  of  the  very  spirit  of 
the  South  itself;  the  wine,  the  true  ruby  Hippocrene, 
and  at  the  brim  of  the  cup  there  would  be  winking 
bubbles,  paJe  sky-reflecting  beads  on  the  flush  of  the 
wine,  that  should  presently  stain  the  mouth  of  the 
drinker.  And  so  I  would  drink,  and  so  I  would  leave 
the  world  unseen  and  like  thee,  O  Unseen  Nightingale, 
fade  into  the  dimness  of  the  forest.' 

The  reader  will  notice  that  with  my  prose,  not 
only  does  he  miss  the  metre,  but  the  total  effect  of 
the  passage  is  one  of  wordiness  and  dilution.  And 
with  all  this  lost,  he  will  feel  that  the  thing  is 
after  all  only  a  bastard  poetic  sort  of  prose. 


THE    POETIC    METHOD  45 

Miss  Amy  Lowell,  that  diligent  experimenter, 
has  endeavoured  to  get  extreme  compression  into 
words  arranged  in  a  prose  rhythm.  Take  this 
passage  from  the  voyage  to  Japan  of  the  paddle- 
steamer  '  Mississippi : — 

*  Break  out  her  sails,  quartermasters,  the  wind  will 
carry  her  faster  than  she  can  steam,  for  the  trades  have 
her  now,  and  are  whipping  her  along-  in  fine  clipper 
style.  Key-guns,  your  muzzles  shine  like  basalt  above 
the  tumbling  waves.  Polished  basalt  cameoed  upon 
malachite.  Yankee-doodle-dandy  !  A  fine  upstanding 
ship,  clouded  with  canvas,  slipping  along  like  a  trot- 
ting filly  out  of  the  Commodore*  s  own  stables.  White 
sails  and  sailors,  blue-coated  officers,  and  red  in  a  star 
sparked  through  the  claret  decanter  on  the  Commo- 
dore^ s  luncheon  table.* 

The  net  result  of  this  sort  of  treatment  is  that 
most  of  the  book,  '  Can  Grande's  Castle,'  looks  like 
prose,  but  the  whole  of  it  reads  like  poetry.  Note 
again  the  effects  of  compression  in  a  very  different 
poem  : — 

*  Flavians  a  wit  has  too  much  sense  to  pray 
To  toast  **  our  wants  and  wishes  !  "  is  her  way. 
Nor  asks  of  God  but  of  her  stars  to  give 
That  greatest  blessing  "  While  we  live,  to  live." 
llien  all  for  Death,  that  opiate  of  the  soul, 
Lucretia's  dagger,  Rosamunda's  bowl. 
Ah  !    what  could  cause  such  impotence  of  mind, 
A  spark  too  fickle,  or  a  spouse  too  kind?  * 

This  is  one  of  poetry's  indirect  devices — and 
among  the  rest  are  periodicity,  rhythms,  rhymes, 
symbolism,  and  a  particular  employment  of  word 
association.     Mr.   Robert  Graves,  in  his  book  on 


46  THE    POETIC    METHOD 

criticism,  has  worked  out  the  theory  of  what  he  calls 
'  the  incantational  aspect  of  poetry  '  very  completely. 
Just  as  the  rhythmic  song,  dance  and  gesture 
of  the  witches'  celebration  were  intended  to  induce 
a  hypnotic  state  in  participants  and  audience,  so  the 
rhythms  or  repetitions  of  a  poem  are  ,used  by  the 
poet  to  soothe  himself  and  his  reader  into  a  recep- 
tive condition,  a  state  in  which  it  is  possible  to  get 
through  the  purely  intellectual  reasoning  layer  of 
our  minds  to  its  deeper  tissues.  It  will  be  realised 
how  important  this  periodic  or  incantational  element 
in  poetry  has  always  been  deemed,  when  we 
consider  the  amount  of  time  and  learning  that  have 
been  expended  on  the  study  of  metres  and  rhyme 
schemes  and  the  whole  stock-in-trade  of  prosody. 
So  important  in  fact  was  this  side  of  poetry  felt  to 
be,  that  a  good  many  people  have  run  away  with  the 
idea  that  this  was  poetry,  and  that  the  art  of  poetry 
lay  in  fitting  some  sort  of  meaning  to  a  rhyme 
scheme. 

As  for  symbolism  and  word  association,  associa- 
tion as  well  as  the  effects  of  a  marked  rhythm  and 
repetition  is  very  well  illustrated  by  a  poem  which 
is  also  an  incantation  : — 

Third  WrrcH  :    *  Scale  of  dragon,  tooth  of  wolf, 
Witches'  mummy,  maw  and  gulf 
Of  the  ravin'd  salt-sea  shark, 
Root  of  hemlock  digg'd   i'   the  dark. 
Liver  of  blaspheming  Jew, 
Gall  of  goat,  and  slips  of  yew 
Silvered  in  the  moon's  eclipse, 

Nose  of  Turk  and  Tartar's  lips. 
Finger  of  birth-strangled  babe 


THE    POETIC    METHOD  47 

Ditch-delivered  by  a  drab, 

Make  the  gruel  thick  and  slab  ; 

Add  thereto  a  tig-er's  chaudron, 

For  the  ingredients  of  our  cauldron. 
All  :    Double,  double  toil  and  trouble ; 

Fire  burn  and  cauldron  bubble. 
Second  Witch  :    Cool  it  with  a  baboon's  blood. 

Then  the  charm,  is  firm  and  good.' 

These  notions  are  not  so  much  horrible  in  them- 
selves, as  horrible  because  we,  or  rather  the 
Elizabethan  audience  for  whom  the  charm  was 
intended  associated  each  item  in  the  stew  with  the 
most  awful  malpractices  of  which  they  could 
conceive. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  more  subtle  aspect  of 
word  association.  It  is  among  other  things  the 
moss  which  is  gathered  by  the  word-stone  as  it 
rolls  down  the  ages,  and  a  further  discussion  of 
association  in  this  aspect  will  be  found  in 
Chapter  VIIL 

Lastly,  I  spoke  of  symbolism.  One  of  Mr. 
Graves'  own  poems,  '  The  Sewing  Basket,'  is  a  very 
good  and  simple  instance  of  a  poem  in  which  the 
overt  content  is  loosely  used  to  convey  secondary 
ideas  : — 

THE  SEWING  BASKET. 

(A  wedding  present  from  Jenny  Nicholson  to    Winifred 
Roberts). 

To  Winifred 

The  day   she's  wed 

(Having  no  gold)  I  send  instead 

This  sewing  basket, 

And  lovingly 


48  THE    POETIC    METHOD 

Demand   that   she, 

If  ever  wanting^  help  from  me, 

Will  surely  ask  it 

Which  being  gravely  said, 

NoW;  to  go  straight  ahead 

With  the  cutting  of  string, 

An  unwrapping  of  paper, 

The  airs  of  a  draper, 

To  review 

And  search  this  basket  through. 

Here's  one  place  full 
Of  coloured  wool 
And  various  yam 
With  w^hich  to  darn, 
Tve  worked  for  you 
Lettered  fromi  A  to  Z, 
The  text  of  which 
In   small   cross-stitch 
Is  Love  to  Winifred. 

Here's  a  rag-doll  wherein 

To  thrust  the  casual  pin. 

His  name  is  Benjamin 

For  his  ingenuous  face ; 

Be  sure  I've  not  forgotten 

Black  thread  or  crochet  cotton  ; 

While  Brussels  lace 

Has  found  a  place 

Behind  the  needle-case. 

(But  the  case  for  the  scissors? 

Empty,  as  you  see. 

Love  must  not  be  sundered 

Between  you  and  me.) 

Winifred   Roberts, 

Think  of  me,   do. 

When  the  friends  I  am  sending 

Are  working  for  you. 


THE      ART    FOR   ART  S    SAKE       DILEMMA  49 

The  song  of  the  thimble 

Is,    *  O   forget   me  not.* 

Says  the  tape-measure, 

*  Absent,  but  never  forgot  .  .  .* 

If  we  do  not  try  to  read  too  much  into  the  poem 
its  meaning  is,  of  course,  perfectly  clear  and 
obvious.  There  is  a  double  meaning,  and  two 
concurrent  means  of  expression.  Mr.  Graves  has 
amused  himself  with  the  use  of  the  things  in  the 
basket  as  messengers  and  with  a  study  of  a  feminine 
mind  embarked  on  a  piece  of  phantasy.  It  will  be 
seen  that  in  this  double  thread  is  a  method  of 
conveying  notions  almost  entirely  peculiar  to 
poetry.  Sometimes  the  poet  gives  us  what  we 
might  call  the  prose  as  well  as  the  poetic  version  of 
his  thought.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  better 
example  of  this  treatment  than  the  first  and  last 
verses  of  Herrick's  most  famous  lyric  : — 

*  Gather  ye  rose-buds  while  ye  may, 
Old  Time  is  still  a-flying ; 
And  this  same  flower  that  smiles  to-day, 
To-morrowi  will  be  dying  .... 

Then  be  not  coy,  but  use  your  time; 

And  while  ye  may,  ^o  marry ; 
For  having  lost  but  once  your  prime, 

Ye  may  for  ever  tarry.' 

Neither  the  language  nor  thought  are  here  very 
profound,  but  their  simplicity  at  least  serves  to 
increase  their  clarity.  The  reader  will  see  how 
almost  absurdly  the  direct  statement  narrows  the 
meaning  of  the  first  indirect  one. 


Chapter  VIL 

THE  '  ART  FOR  ART'S  SAKE  '  DILEMMA. 

RusKiN,  Tennyson,  Swinburne,  Rossetti,  and 
Stevenson  were  all  of  them  in  their  several  ways 
deeply  affected  by  a  controver3y  which  came  to  be 
known  as  the  '  Art  for  Art's  Sake  '  question.  Was 
an  artist  to  be,  as  Stevenson,  for  example,  held, 
a  maker  of  beautiful  things  and  to  follow  beauty 
wherever  or  into  whatsoever  company  it  might  lead 
him.^  Or  was  he,  as  Tennyson  affirmed,  to  be  the 
noble  teacher  who  should  inspire  the  citizen  and 
help  struggling  humanity  on  its  w^ay  ^ 

Almost  every  writer  for  half  a  century  took 
sides  upon  this  question,  and  the  v/ork  of  many  of 
them  was  profoundly  affected  by  their  conscious 
attitude  upon  it — the  decorative  painters,  the  deco- 
rative writers  on  the  one  hand,  and  Tennyson  and 
his  like  thinkers,  who  still  would  '  Justify  the  ways 
of  God  to  man,'  on  the  other.  And  now  apparently 
the  years  have  brushed  the  question  aside.  In  all 
our  modern  criticism,  in  all  the  many  diverse 
aesthetic  creeds  that  are  set  forth,  it  finds  no  place. 
Which  way  has  it  been  settled  then?  Is  the  poet  to 
be  Sheherazada,  the  amiable  and  ingenious  narrator 
of  the  Arabian  Nights,  or  a  seer  and  prophet  who  is 
to  lead  mankind  along  the  right  road  ?  This  ques- 
tion   seems    at   first    a    difficult    one,    as    it    is    so 


\ 


THE    '  ART    FOR   ART  S    SAKE       DILEMMA  5 1 

abundantly  obvious  that  no  sort  of  tacit  assent  has 
been  given  to  either  proposition.  How,  then,  has 
the  problem  for  the  moment  solved  itself?  Yet,  I 
think  we  shall  find  that  it  really  has  solved  itself, 
and  that  in  a  not  unusual  way.  We  have  shifted 
unconsciously  on  to  another  plane  of  thought  about 
the  arts  and  the  ethics  which  belong  to  them. 

Behind  the  '  Art  for  Art's  Sake  '  controversy 
was,  I  believe,  a  tacit  assumption  that  we  all,  the 
poet  included,  knew  instinctively  in'  any  given 
instance  what  was  right  and  what  was  wrong.  '  Be 
good,  sweet  maid,  and  let  who  will  be  clever '  was 
the  reduciio  ad  absurdum  of  this  point  of  view. 
It  was  in  vain  for  Stevenson  to  say  that  honesty  was 
not  as  easy  as  blindman's-buff.  His  hearers  inter- 
preted this,  I  fancy,  as  meaning  that  the  flesh  was 
weak,  not  that  the  understanding  was  dim. 

But  we  have  gradually  come  to  realize — some  of 
us  only  gropingly  on  the  unconscious  plane,  that 
there  is  some  sort  of  catch  here.  Sir  Thomas  More 
believed  unhesitatingly  in  the  rightness  of  burning 
heretics.  A  fellow-don,  in  urging  compulsory 
chapels  upon  Jowett,  said,  to  clinch  the  argument, 
'  Well,  Mr.  Jowett,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  it  is  a  choice 
between  a  compulsory  religion  and  no  religion  at 
all ' ;  to  which  Jowett  gave  his  celebrated  reply, 
*  My  mind  is  not  of  sufficient  subtlety  to  distinguish 
between  two  such  alternatives.' 

The  reader  will  easily  recall  for  himself  a  dozen 
instances  of  what  we  might  call  the  changeability 
of  morals,  or  rather  of  the  necessary  evolution  of 
our  outlook  upon  morals.     We  have  at  last  a  long 


52  THE      ART    FOR   ART  S    SAKE       DILEMMA 

enough  history  behind  us  to  realise  that,  though 
there  may  be  the  Platonic  Ideas — the  sealed 
patterns — of  Truth,  Honesty,  Right  and  Wrong  laid 
up  in  Heaven,  their  manifestations  compounded 
with  the  shifting  stuff  of  human  life  are  very 
variable.  Something  of  this  truth  is  popularly 
expressed  in  the  colloquialism  that  the  old  people 
acted  '  according  to  their  lights,'  and  this  is  where 
we  have  begun  subconsciously  to  feel  that  the  poet 
comes  in.  His  work  is  to  increase  the  illuminating 
power  of  the  said  '  lights.'  We  dare  not  say  off- 
hand, any  more  than  can  a  judge  who  has  not  heard 
the  evidence,  what  is  right  or  what  is  wrong  in  a 
given  case.  Who  knows,  we  may  all  at  this  moment 
in  some  matter — sexual  morality,  perhaps — be 
acting  upon  ethical  principles  as  mistaken  as  were 
those  of  the  heretic  burners,  who  were  often,  like 
Sir  Thomas  More,  the  most  conscientious  of  men, 
acting  from  the  sternest  sense  of  duty.  Such  or 
such  a  line  of  conduct  is  accused  of  being  wrong; 
the  man  who  would  stop  the  poet  or  the  writer  from 
defending  the  accused  line  of  conduct  is  acting  in 
the  spirit  of  a  judge  who  refuses  to  hear  the  counsel 
for  the  defence.  The  analogy  between  the  function 
of  a  poet,  or  at  least  one  of  his  functions,  and  that 
of  the  advocate  is  a  very  close  one.  If  the  poet,  by 
taking  thought  or  by  inspiration,  is  visited  with  a 
gleam  of  understanding  of  the  motives  of  some 
other  human  being  in  performing  a  certain  action, 
he  is  very  much  in  the  position  of  the  briefed 
advocate.  It  is  his  business  to  put  the  point  of  view 
up  for  what  it  is  worth.     This  was  a  matter  which 


THE      ART    FOR   ART  S    SAKE      DILEMMA  53 

Browning  thoroughly  understood.  Take  for 
example  '  The  Statue  and  the  Bust/  and  the 
poem  about  the  lady  who  throws  her  glove  into 
the  lions'  den.  Let  those  who  say,  '  Ah !  but  the 
poet  must  not  defend  what  is  contrary  to  right  and 
decency/  remember  heretic-burning  and  compul- 
sory religion  and  be  humble.  Not  perhaps  right 
and  wrong,  but  certainly  our  knowledge  and  grop- 
ing understanding  of  them  and  their  applications 
are  in  the  highest  degree  mutable.  Tennyson 
knew  that : 

*  The  hills'  are  shadows,    and  they  flow 
From:  form,  to  form,  and  nothing*  stands.' 

But  neither  he  nor  Milton — to  instance  two  of  our 
greatest  didactic  poets — realized  that  this  was  as 
true  of  our  comprehension  of  ethics  as  of  the 
facts  of  geography.  Systems  of  ethics  we  must 
obviously  have,  for  it  is  impossible  for  men  to  live 
in  a  community  together  without  a  pretty  strict 
code.  Civilized  life  is  a  tapestry  woven  of  such 
codes.  To  take  an  apparently  ridiculous  instance, 
could  twenty-two  men  amuse  themselves  for  three 
days  on  a  patch  of  green  grass  with  two  bats  and  a 
ball  and  six  sticks  if  it  were  not  for  the  M.C.C. 
rules  of  cricket.^  A  system  of  ethics,  enforced  as 
rigidly  as  circumstances  allow,  is  absolutely  essen- 
tial if  men  are  to  live  together.  It  is  difficult  to 
over-estimate  the  harm  done  by  a  system  of  ethics 
which  no  longer  fits  the  temper  of  the  time,  and 
whose  decrees  are  consequently  often  broken,  and 
these  breaches  visited  now  with  severity,  now  with 


54  THE      ART    FOR    ART'S    SAKE       DILEMMA 

leniency.  We  are  tempted  to  wish  that  some  such 
device  could  be  employed  in  morals  as  is  used 
in  certain  minor  questions  of  the  code  by  which 
we  live  together;  to  long  that  the  standard  of 
morality  to  which  the  community  expects  us  to 
conform  were  published  every  day  in  the  news- 
paper like  Lighting-up  Time.  Thus  we  should 
always  know  how  to  frame  our  own  conduct  in 
matters  that  affect  our  fellows  and  how  we  might 
expect  our  fellows  to  act  in  relation  to  us. 

Perhaps  so  ridiculous  an  illustration  will  make 
the  reader  agree  that  this  publication,  this  mere 
enunciation  of  what  the  community  may  from  time 
to  time  agree  shall  be  its  working  code  of  ethics, 
could  clearly  never  be  the  prime  work  of  the  poet. 
Yet  such  is  the  sort  of  task  which  the  didactics  were 
inclined  to  believe  was  theirs. 

The  didactic  poet,  the  poet  who  regards  '  Art 
for  Art's  Sake  '  as  the  '  chief  est  Lord  of  Hell,'  has 
conceived  his  function  to  be  that  of  helping  to 
enforce  the  existing  rules,  and  is  apt  to  neglect  his 
true  function  of  devising,  or  of  providing  data  for 
the  devising  of  new  and  better  rules.  (Dr.  John- 
son, for  instance,  has  a  long  passage  in  his  preface 
to  Shakespeare  blaming  him  because  he  misses  so 
many  didactic  opportunities.)  That  this  was  an 
unfortunate  limitation  of  function  the  decorative 
artist  saw.  '  The  chosen  children  of  beauty,'  the 
artists  who  conceived  of  their  function  as  that  of 
making  human  life  endurable,  of  gladdening,  if  it 
might  be,  men's  passage  '  between  a  dark  and  a 
dark,'  were  uneasy  at  such  a  petrification. 


THE      ART    FOR   ARTS    SAKE      DILEMMA  55 

But  in  repudiating  the  idea  that  the  function 
of  the  poet  was  that  of  a  judge,  or,  as  they 
themselves  v/ould  perhaps  have  said,  of  a  kind  of 
hortatory  policeman,  they  went  too  far.  They 
dissociated  themselves  completely  from  ethics. 
This  weakened  their  position,  and  as  consolers  and 
makers  of  beauty  they  took  rank  below  the  makers 
of  laws.  For  man  is  an  intensely  ethical  animal; 
in  the  end  ethics  are  among  the  three  or  four  things 
he  cares  about  most.  And  necessarily  so,  for 
ethics  are  the  code  by  which  he  adapts  himself  to 
the  extremely-  ticklish  business  of  reconciling  his 
inner  biological  needs  with  the  circumstances  of 
living  in  a  community.  The  least  mistake  in  this 
all-important  sphere  of  the  code  and  he  feels  that 
he  may  be  seized  and  burnt  at  the  stake  or  con- 
demned to  lifelong  celibacy.  So  in  dissociating 
themselves  from  all  traffic  with  this  absorbing  affair 
the  Decoratives  cut  themselves  adrift  from  the  main 
current  of  human  life.  Stevenson,  a  man  of  pecu- 
liarly clear  vision,  saw  that  such  was  the  result 
of  their  creed,  but  he  saw  no  way  out  of  the  decora- 
tive position  except  by  joining  with  the  Didactics 
whose  tenets  he  could  not  accept.  So  he  frankly 
said  with  a  sigh  that  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
the  writer  or  the  artist  is  but  the  fille  de  joie  of  the 
community.  But  the  highest  and  the  most  serious 
function  of  the  poet  is  to  teach  the  law-makers — 
we  are  all  in  a  smaller  or  greater  degree  law-makers 
— something  about  the  human  soul,  sometimes  to 
see  beauty  where  before  we  had  only  seen  shame 
and  meanness,  sometimes  to  tear  the  mask  off  pre- 


56    SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  '  THEORY 

tension.  This  idea  of  the  poet's  function  is  not  a 
new  one.  Certainly  much  of  this  simple  doctrine 
of  the  poet  or  the  prophet  as  the  '  forth-teller/ 
though  dark  to  Tennyson,  was  plain,  for  example, 
to  the  author  of  Ecclesiastes;  he  is  as  much  con- 
cerned to  give  us  a  moving,  sympathetic  picture 
of  the  old  man  to  whom  the  grasshopper  is  a 
burden  and  in  whom  desires  have  failed  as  he  is 
to  give  us  direct  ethical  instruction. 


Chapter  VIII 

SYMBOLISM  AND  THE   XHOST' 
THEORY 

Directly  we  begin  to  deal  with  words,  we  begin 
to  realise  how  shifting  a  thing  is  human  language. 
The  architect  builds  with  square  calculable  stones, 
the  musician  with  clear-cut,  definite  notes,  but  the 
poet  has  to  use  a  stuff  for  his  buildings  which 
sometimes  in  a  frenzy  of  despair  he  feels  inclined 
to  think  will  never  stand  still  to  be  handled.  A 
word  is  not  only  an  extremely  indefinite  thing,  but 
it  is  invariably  also  a  composite  thing.  Look  up 
any  word  in  the  dictionary,  and  you  will  find  that 
it  trails  clouds  of  something  or  other  behind  it 
in  its  derivation  from  the  Latin,  Sanskrit, 
Greek,  or  Anglo-Saxon.  You  will  probably 
find  that  the  original  word  did  not  mean  in  the 
least  what  we  mean  by  the  word  as  we  have 
it  now,  and  we  may  find  a  whole  string  of 
meanings  through  which  the  word  passed  in  the 
course  of  its  handing  down  to  us.  Sometimes  the 
derivations  of  a  word  give  a  sardonic  comment 
upon  human  nature.  It  is  always  amusing,  for 
instance,  to  think  how  typical  it  is  of  mankind's 


58    SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  '  THEORY 

ways  that  '  presently '  to  Shakespeare  and  to 
Marlowe  meant  '  this  moment.'  But  man  is  a 
procrastinating  anim'al,  and  now  the  word  openly 
means  what  it  meant  all  along. 

Ghosts  of  these  former  uses  cling  about  words. 
Further,  words  pick  up  private  family  or  class 
associations  of  their  own  on  their  way  to  us.  We 
can  all  of  us  easily  think  of  class  Shibboleths.  For 
example,  there  is  nothing  intrinsically  shocking  in 
the  exchange  of  the  phrases,  '  Oh,  beg  pardon,'  and 
'  Granted,'  but  in  certain  people  the  words  will 
produce  their  shudder  none  the  less,  while  to  others 
they  will  appear  completely  harmless.  Place 
names  appear  to  be  peculiarly  sticky,  I  mean,  to 
pick  up  associations  particularly  easily.  The  name 
of  Vallombrosa,  for  instance,  irresistibly  calls  up  a 
train  of  its  own,  that  is  to  anyone  who  is  fond  of 
'  Paradise  Lost.'  Perhaps  a  consideration  of  this 
train  will  illustrate  the  complexity  of  the  associa- 
tions with  which  words  entangle  themselves.  To 
anyone  with  a  visual  imagination,  the  image  called 
up  by  '  Vallombrosa  '  will  probably  first  of  all  be  a 
shallow  stream  with  rounded  boulders  in  it,  and 
floating  on  it  a  glowing  red-brown  scum  of  leaves, 
each  leaf  curled  up  a  little  at  the  edge.  Behind 
this  image,  there  is  another  one,  not  so  clear,  and 
probably  differing  very  markedly  in  the  minds  of 
different  individual  readers  of  Milton.  This  time 
it  is  a  design,  which  might  be  in  bas  relief  or  might 
be  in  Chiaroscuro,  of  a  landscape  in  which  is  a  lake. 
The  light  is  fitful,  like  that  which  we  see  just  before 
a  thunderstorm.  Out  of  the  lake  half  emerge  figures 


SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  *  THEORY    59 

in  Roman  armour — there  are  spears,  helmets, 
bucklers,  body  armour,  and  short  Roman  swords, 
sometimes  in  the  hands  or  on  the  persons  of  their 
wearers,  sometimes  piled  along  the  side  of  the 
lake  in  great  Baroque  trophies.  Somewhere  in  the 
middle  of  the  lake  reclines  a  gigantic  shadowy 
figure,  again  in  classical  armour ;  a  huge  staff,  '  fit 
for  the  mast  of  some  high  Amiral,'  is  the  clearest 
of  his  attributes.  A  sense  of  despair  and  uneasiness 
hangs  over  the  scene. 

I  do  not  mean  that  whenever  the  word  '  Vallom- 
brosa'  is  mentioned  I  stop  and  gaze  for  half  an 
hour  at  these  two  super-imposed  m-ental  images. 
In  reading  a  passage  where  the  word  occurred,  I 
should  be  conscious  of  such  pictures  rather  as  one 
is  conscious  of  decorations  in  a  corridor  down  which 
one  is  passing.  We  see  such  pictures  as  we  walk, 
the  effect  they  produce  may  be  sharp,  but  it  is 
transitory.  Their  presence  makes  itself  felt,  how- 
ever, and  may  colour  our  impressions  of  our  other 
surroundings. 

But  the  reader  may  ask  :  Why  have  you  called 
such  associations  private  ?  I  have  done  so,  because 
I  suppose  the  mental  image  of  a  person  who  had 
visited  Vallombrosa  and  had  not  read  Milton  would 
be  completely  different  to  mine,  for  instance,  and 
this  brings  us  to  one  of  the  points  from  which 
considerable  complication  springs.  The  association 
called  up  by  a  word  may  be,  so  to  say,  the  associa- 
tion belonging  to  the  word  itself,  or  may  belong 
to  the  thing  expressed  by  the  word.  '  Municipal ' 
may  call  up  '  Mummy  '  from  the  position  of  the  two 


6o    SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  '  THEORY 

words  in  the  dictionary,  or  it  might  call  up  thoughts 
and  images  in  connection  with  the  word  *  election/ 
or  water  supply,  or  tram  system,  or  images  allied 
with  half  a  dozen  other  associations. 

Some  people  again  have  a  colour  sense  con- 
nected with  words.  Certain  vowel  and  consonant 
sounds  represent  certain  colours.  To  someone 
whom  I  know  the  sound  of  '  Ch  '  is  red-brown,  and 
the  sound  of  '  S  '  represents  yellow  and  gold.  This 
fact  emerged  because  this  lady  embroidered  the 
names  of  my  two  daughters  on  a  sash.  Susan's 
embroidery  was  in  yellow  and  gold,  and  Charlotte's 
in  pinks,  red  and  russets.  She  seemed  surprised 
Vv^hen  I  asked  her  why  she  had  chosen  these  colours. 
The  reason  for  using  the  silks  seemed  to  her  self- 
evident. 

Miss  Bryher,  a  young  novelist  who  wrote  a  book 
called  '  Development,'  possesses  something  like  the 
same  sensory  peculiarity.  When  such  people  read 
poetry,  as  far  as  I  can  make  out,  they  experience, 
in  addition  to  what  the  poet  has  set  down  for  them, 
a  sort  of  running  accompaniment  of  colour  patterns 
evoked  not  by  the  symbols  employed  by  the  poet — 
the  green  fields,  the  '  wine  dark  sea ' — but  by  the 
sounds  of  the  words  employed. 

We  do  not  all  re-act  in  quite  such  a  complicated 
way,  but  to  everybody  each  word  necessarily 
becomes  a  kind  of  conglomeration  or  rather  grows 
to  be  like  an  atom  with  its  little  court  of  electrons 
clustered  round  it.  We  are  all,  in  writing  prose  or 
verse,  in  the  case  of  our  native  language,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  roughly  aware  of  these 


SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  '  THEORY    6l 

associations  that  words  carry  with  them,  and  we 
treat  the  words  accordingly.  Sometimes  when  we 
hear  a  foreigner  talk,  the  fact  that  words  do  have 
very  marked  secondary  characters  of  their  own  is 
brought  home  to  us  by  the  mistakes  he  will  make 
through  having  apprehended  only  the  obvious  top 
meaning  of  a  word.  Nor  is  this  all.  Metaphy- 
sicians say  that  all  knowledge  is  comparative,  and 
our  statements  about  things  when  analysed  are 
found  to  consist  in  a  placing  of  the  thing  spoken  of 
into  a  category.  Sometimes  these  categories  are 
very  exactly,  sometimes  very  roughly  conceived. 
We  are  confronted,  say,  by  four  material  facts,  a 
group  of  white  daisies,  a  red  geranium  in  a  pot,  a 
terrier  asleep  on  the  garden  path,  and  a  white 
pigeon  pecking  about  for  grains  of  corn  amid  the 
stones  of  the  gravel.  The  most  elaborate  scientific 
classification  of  these  creatures  into  vegetable  and 
animal,  bird  and  mammal,  animate  or  inanimate, 
and  so  on  through  all  the  exactitudes  of  species, 
family  and  genus,  are  really  only  exact  ways  of 
saying  that  the  geranium  and  the  white  daisies  are 
more  like  each  other  than  either  is  like  the  pigeon, 
or  conversely  that  the  dog  and  the  pigeon  are  more 
alike  than  either  is  to  the  geranium  or  the  pot. 
However  far  we  push  knowledge  it  never  ceases  to 
be  relative. 

This  fact  sometimes  has  curious  consequences 
in  the  case  of  words.  The  most  northerly  county 
in  Scotland,  for  instance,  is  called  Sutherland, 
and,  therefore,  we  can  never  speak  or  see  its  name 
without   that   word  trailing   after  it  some   sort   of 


62    SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  '  THEORY 

image  of  the  men  who  gave  it  that  name,  and  of 
the  country  from  which  they  came,  and  the  black 
ships  that  brought  them.  Or,  take  the  words 
*  kitten  '  or  '  puppy,'  which  mean  like  a  cat  or  like  a 
dog,  but  less  big  and  less  mature.  The  words, 
because  they  are  comparative,  carry  about  with 
them  a  kind  of  back  reference  to  cats  and  dogs. 
This  is,  of  course,  entirely  obvious  in  words  where 
a  mere  diminutive  or  superlative  is  formed — super- 
man, duckling.  This  reference  to  something  on 
one  side  or  the  other  of  the  actual  thing  meant  by 
the  word  is  another  of  the  electrons  clustering 
round  the  word-atom. 

But  we  have  a  third  trick  of  the  human  brain 
to  reckon  with,  and  that  is  our  primitive  habit  of 
personifying.  At  one  time  or  another,  man  seems 
to  have  personified  everything  under  the  sun — the 
seasons,  his  own  emotions,  the  sea,  colds  in  the 
head,  all  the  different  aspects  of  the  forces  that  play 
upon  him  (destinies,  furies,  devils,  mystery  gods, 
and  so  forth).  This  personification  or  symbolism 
was  in  fact  probably  the  only  process  by  which 
primitive  minds  were  able  to  deal  with  abstract 
thought  at  all.  Personification,  though  it  seems 
natural  and  easy  enough  to  us  even  now  (that  is,  if 
we  are  careful  not  to  stop  to  consider  the  mental 
processes  that  it  involves),  in  primitive  society  was 
probably  a  process  which  seized  upon  any  more  or 
less  abstract  idea  which  happened  to  enter  a  man's 
mind, — just  in  the  same  way  that  the  process  of 
digestion  seized  upon  any  article  of  food  that 
entered  his  body. 


SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  '  THEORY    6^ 

Such  then  are  words.  Here  is  the  sort  of 
stuff  which  writers  have  to  use.  But  the  electrons 
do  not  have  the  same  value  in  poetry  and  prose, 
alike.  In  the  case  of  prose,  the  reader  is  to  a  certain 
extent  hurried  on  by  the  sense  of  the  passage  that 
he  is  reading  past  the  comparative  implications 
which  the  word  may  carry  with  it,  past  the  symbolic 
meaning.  In  prose  the  v/ord  is  much  more  a 
vehicle  than  it  is  in  poetry.  Nothing  is  commoner 
than  for  a  quick  reader  in  the  case  of  prose  to  read 
a  passage  and  to  take  in  the  sense  of  it  clearly,  but 
not  to  be  able  to  recollect  one  phrase  or  word  in 
which  that  meaning  was  conveyed  to  him.  It  is 
hardly  to  be  supposed  that  anyone  has  ever  read 
poetry  like  that.  In  the  case  of  a  quick,  inattentive 
reader,  it  is  more  likely  to  be  the  other  way  about.. 
He  may  know  the  colour  and  flavour  of  the  poem,, 
but  not  necessarily  be  very  clear  what  its  subject 
was. 

It  comes  about,  therefore,  that  the  prose  writer's 
task,  so  far  as  purely  verbal  expression  is  con- 
cerned, is  the  easier  one.  Half  these  elusive, 
shifting,  secondary  meanings,  implications  and 
associations  are  in  his  case,  slurred  over  and  almost 
ignored.  Thus  he  makes  his  patterns  with  more  or 
less  straightforward  material,  and  has  done  with  it. 
But  the  poet  is  always  making  a  pattern  in  two 
or  three  dimensions  at  once,  and  the  clash  in  the 
sub-pattern  made  by  the  under-tones,  under- 
meanings,  under-associations  of  his  words  and 
phrases  may,  by  some  effect  of  bathos,  or  through 
some  other  cause,  completely  ruin  his  apparently 


64    SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  '  THEORY 

excellent  and  sensible  top  meaning.  And  this 
having  to  consider  four  or  five  things  at  once,  of 
course  makes  his  task  difficult.  There  is,  however, 
obviously  a  credit  side  to  this  account.  One  may, 
in  fact,  to  some  extent  liken  a  poem  to  a  kaleido- 
scope picture,  most  of  whose  grand  effect  is  made 
not  by  the  little  bits  of  glass  which  the  shake  of  our 
hand  has  arranged,  but  from  the  reflections  of  these 
pieces  of  glass  in  the  mirrors  which  form  its  sides. 
So  in  a  great  number  of  poems  it  is  the  symbolism 
and  under-tones  and  implications  when  combined 
and  contrasted  with  its  obvious  straightforward 
meaning  that  give  the  piece  of  verse  all  its 
richness.  Too  great  a  reliance  upon  the  symbolic 
and  *  ghost '  sides  of  poetry  is,  however,  as  we 
should  expect,  not  without  its  pitfalls.  Psycho- 
logists seem  to  think  that  there  does  exist  a  small 
group  of  words  to  which  all  people,  using  the  same 
language,  attach  the  same  symbolic  meaning,  but 
the  number  of  such  words  is  small,  and  may  grow 
smaller  as  varied  reading  replaces  original  images 
with  acquired  ones.  Consequently  it  sometimes 
happens  that  a  word  to  the  poet  may  bring  up  a 
perfectly  different  train  of  ghosts  to  the  one  which 
it  brings  up  to  the  reader  (as  in  the  case  of  'Vallom- 
brosa  ').  The  result  is,  of  course,  if  his  top  meaning 
is  negligible,  that  the  poet  talks  in  a  kind  of  private 
cypher  of  his  own.  The  most  obvious  case  of  this 
is  Blake's  Books  of  Prophecy.  There  do  appa- 
rently (or  least  there  might)  exist  people  to  whom 
the  mystical  meaning  of  what  Blake  wrote  is  as 
clear  as  it  was  to  Blake,  but  to  most  people  the 


SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  '  THEORY    65 

key  to  Blake's  thought  is  lost,  because  his  meaning 
was  expressed  exclusively  in  the  shifting,  ghostly, 
shadowy  mediums  of  association  and  symbolism. 

The  consideration  of  this  side  of  poetry  is 
further  complicated  by  the  fact  that  symbol 
*  allegory,'  '  metaphor,'  *  simile,*  and  *  comparison,' 
all  seem  to  be  words  which  in  practice  are  used  as  if 
ithey  shaded  into  one  another.  The  distinction 
between  them  is  far  from  clear  in  my  own  mind, 
but  the  situation  seems  to  me  roughly  to  be  that  all 
these  things  are  methods  of  indirect  statement. 
We  might  perhaps  define  a  symbol  as  a  statement 
by  indirect  means  which  the  reader  does  not 
mentally  translate  back  into  *  plain  English.'  In 
the  case  of  allegory,  on  the  other  hand,  most  of  the 
effect  is  produced  by  the  fact  that  he  does.  When 
we  go  to  see  '  Everyman  '  acted,  a  great  deal  of 
our  pleasure  appears  to  me  to  spring  from  the  fact 
that  we  are  continuously  engaged  in  a  mental 
process  of  translating  back  '  Mankind,'  '  Sin,' 
'  Good  Deeds,'  and  '  Death '  into  little  concrete 
statements.  '  Good  Deeds  '  is  a  piece  of  religious 
allegory.  We  translate  it  back.  The  Christian 
symbols  of  the  Lamb  or  the  Cross,  the  Pagan 
symbols  of  Proserpine  and  Balder,  the  Universal 
symbol  of  the  woman  with  the  infant  on  her  knee, 
wo  do  not  translate  back.  Is  it  perhaps  possible 
that  a  symbol  is  an  allegory  so  well  known,  so 
firmly  accepted,  and  hence  so  obvious  that  we  can 
think  in  its  terms  as  easily  as  in  any  other  .'^ 
Metaphor,  simile,  and  analogy  seem  to  me  to  be 
methods    of    expression    rather    than    methods  of 


66    SYMBOLISM  AND  THE  '  GHOST  '  THEORY 

thought.  Such  devices  are  most  frequently  used 
to  reduce  the  general  to  the  particular,  the  abstract 
to  the  concrete.  They  are  ways  of  making  the 
general  easier  of  apprehension  to  the  minds  of  the 
reader  or  the  listener.  Only  those  who  have 
habitually  to  employ  them  know  what  untrustworthy 
servants  they  sometimes  prove. 

In  Professor  Whitehead's  opinion  words  are  in- 
variably slightly  misleading.  He,  considering 
language  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  mathema- 
tician, is,  in  fact,  so  appalled  by  the  amount  of 
back  meanings,  associations,  and  generally  by  the 
'  ghosts '  which  we  have  tried  to  show  in  this 
chapter  that  he  rejects  words  altogether  as  not 
being  fit  for  the  expression  of  exact  ideas  at  all.  I 
cite  Professor  Whitehead  because  I  do  not  want 
the  reader  to  suppose  that  all  this  business  is  a  sort 
of  feverish  dream,  a  figment  of  the  brain  of  neurotic 
poets,  and  that  language  is  really  pretty  exact  and 
four  square  after  all.  It  w^as  his  complete  convic- 
tion of  the  unstableness  and  above  all  of  the  '  vital ' 
character  of  words  that  induced  Professor  White- 
head to  evolve  his  system  of  symbolic  logic.  He 
was  in  a  region  where  figures  would  not  altogether 
serve  his  turn,  but  rather  than  use  such  myriad- 
faceted,  ungovernable  things  as  words  in  the  state- 
ment of  nice  and  exact  shades  of  logical  meaning, 
he  substitutes  dots,  dashes,  pluses,  and  equals — any 
material,  however  humble,  that  he  can  trust  to  stand 
still  to  be  manipulated.  But  Professor  Whitehead 
is  not  the  only  scientist  to  react  from  the  tyranny  of 
words.     There  is  a  whole  School  of  Science — Mr. 


SYMBOLISM  AND  THE   GHOST   THEORY     6/ 

Sanderson  of  Oundle  is  the  spokesman  through 
whom  it  was  expounded  to  me — ^who,  whenever 
possible,  substitute  charts,  graphs,  and  tables  for 
the  written  word. 

Of  this  school  of  thought  I  shall  speak  in  a  later 
chapter. 


Chapter  IX 

USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE 

As  far  as  our  intellects  are  concerned,  the  pleasure 
we  take  in  Metre  has,  I  fancy,  to  do  with  our 
pleasure  in  the  familiar.  The  difference  between 
prose  and  metre  has  been  stated  graphically  as  the 
difference  between  a  line  which  is  constantly 
curving  back  upon  itself  and  a  line  which  goes 
forward  all  the  time.  The  whole  point  of  most  of 
the  devices  of  metre  is  the  recurrence  of  particular 
thoughts  or  rhythms  either  exactly,  or  with  a  small 
change.  The  rhyme  itself  is,  of  course,  a  perfect 
example  of  this.  What  the  reader  enjoys  is  the 
return  to  a  similar  sound,  and  a  different  sense. 

But  really  the  main  function  of  metre  is  the 
hypnotic  one  which  I  tried  to  analyse  three  chapters 
ago.  But  why  should  the  well-marked  repetitions 
of  the  dance,  the  recurrence  of  a  refrain,  or  the 
more  subtle  backward  curving  of  rhyme  and 
antithesis  have  this  lulling  and  soothing  effect  upon 
us,  quite  apart  from  any  symbolism  in  the  dance, 
or  any  meaning  in  the  words  .^  Is  it  possible  that 
these  rhythms  make  some  subtle  union  with  the 
natural  rhythms  of  our  bodies.^  For  the  life  of  the 
body  is  full  of  rhythms — there  are  the  alternations 
of  sleeping  and  waking,  the  ebb  and  fiov/  of  cur 


USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE         69 

breathing,  the  intricate  heart  pattern  of  systole  and 
diastole,  the  motion  of  our  legs  in  walking,  the 
dozen  internal  rhythms  of  contraction  and  relaxa- 
tion of  which  we  are  not  conscious,  and  lastly  that 
curious  rhythmic  agony  of  the  birth  pangs  which 
have  brought  each  of  us  into  the  world.  The 
human  race  seems  to  have  a  natural  passion  for 
recurrence  and  rhythmic  curves,  and  is  always 
looking  out  for  them.  Our  clocks  and  watches 
really  go  along  straightforward  tick-tick-tick,  but 
most  of  use  to  please  our  rhythm-hunger,  hear  the 
sounds  as  tick-tock.  There  are  dozens  of  every- 
day sounds  that  we  conventionalise  and  regularise 
for  our  pleasure,  the  sound  of  the  wheels  of  trains 
and  trams,  the  ripplings  and  murmur  of  brooks 
and  rivers,  the  beat  of  waves.  Without  rhythm  and 
its  effect  upon  the  subconsciousness,  and  its  power 
of  direct  non-intellectual  command  over  the  body, 
most  drill  and  all  concerted  music  and  dancing 
would  be  impossible.  The  unaided  will  could 
never  time  a  muscular  contraction  within  half  a 
breath  as  will  a  rhythmic  cycle  : 

*  Let  your  feet 
Like  the  g-alleys  when  they  row 
Even  beat.* 

But  to  return  to  the  actual  problems  set  us  by 
our  use  of  these  rhythmic  powers  in  poetry.  There 
are,  of  course,  a  whole  set  of  arguments  for  and 
against  regularity  of  poetic  metre.  Let  us  first 
consider  the  objections  to  the  use  of  strict  forms. 
In   the  first   place,   from   being  capable   servants, 


70         USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE 

rhyme  and  metre  may  obviously  become  the  most 
tyrannical  masters,  entirely  intractable  to  the  poet's 
will,  the  implacable  enemies  of  the  mot  juste. 
Especially  is  metre  apt  to  become  the  enemy  of 
thought : 

*Fof  rhymes  the  rudders  are  of  verses 
By  which  like  ships  they  steer  their  courses. ' 

If  he  embarks  on  too  elaborate  a  metrical 
scheme,  the  poet  will  often  find  himself  unable  to 
call  his  soul  his  own.  All  this  business  of  prosody 
and  metre  also  has  been  complicated  by  the 
frantic  attempts  of  scholars  to  fit  Latin  forms 
of  prosody  and  scansion  on  to  English.  As  far 
as  I  can  understand  this  most  complicated  con- 
troversy, what  has  been  proved  is  that  they  very 
nearly  fit,  but  not  quite.  The  Prosodists  are  much 
in  the  position  of  somebody  who  tries  to  put  the 
left  boot  on  to  the  right  foot.  He  justly  pleads 
that  the  boot  is  of  the  right  size,  that  it  is  the  right 
sort  of  boot,  and  that  surely  it  ought  to  fit  and  can 
be  made  to  do  so.  Even  to  this  day  a  great  many 
scholars  and  experts  have  not  discovered  what  is 
wrong. 

Many  a  young  person  has  been  for  ever 
frightened  off  any  consideration  of  poetry  by  his 
complete  inability  to  understand  the  difference — 
except  in  the  isolation  of  '  examples ' — between 
iambs,  trochees,  anapaests,  and  dactyls.  I  remem- 
ber quite  well  how  when  I  was  about  sixteen,  I  strug- 
gled with  this  very  business,  and  how  a  kind  mentor 
wrote  me  out  syllables  in  longs  and  shorts,  and 


USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE         7 1 

how  I  faithfully  pinned  them  over  my  washstand 
and  conned  them  until  I  knew  them.  Then  I  tried 
to  fit  them  on  to  the  poetry  I  knew  by  heart ;  I  never 
dared  confess  that  it  seemed  to  me  possible  to  scan 
most  of  it  at  least  in  two  ways.  I  tore  my 
hair  and  then  and  there  grimly  decided  that  poetry 
was  not  for  me,  as  I  apparently  could  not  under- 
stand, or,  at  any  rate,  could  not  apply  what  appeared 
to  be  universally  acknowledged  as  the  very  founda- 
tion of  poetic  technique.  It  was  not  till  years 
afterwards  that  I  discovered  that  the  great  majority 
of  English  poems  can  in  sober  fact  be  scanned  in 
two  or  three  ways,  and  that  there  is  much  to  be  said 
for  the  theory  that  the  whole  of  this  elaborate 
science  of  prosody  is  just(but  how  completely!) 
beside  the  point  in  the  case  of  English  verse.  If 
only  it  had  occurred  to  somebody  to  reveal  the 
simple  fact  to  me  that  almost  all  beginners  write 
first  by  ear  and  then  '  dress  '  their  syllables  by  the 
primitive  method  of  counting  them  up  on  their 
fingers,  and  that  this  habit  was  no  unique  shame  of 
mine  !  Also  that  not  till  I  came  to  the  stage  of  this 
counting-on-fingers  process  would  I  necessarily  be 
sur^  where  the  beginning  of  the  lines  and  the  capital 
letters  came.  However,  enough  of  my  youthful 
sorrows.  I  am  quite  ready  to  agree  with  the  reader 
that  if  my  poetic  impulse  was  stifled  by  this  sort  of 
mechanical  difficulty  it  was  not  of  very  strong 
growth  and  not  particularly  well  worth  preserving. 
A  study  of  formal  Prosody  seems  to  breed  very 
much  the  same  temper  in  its  students  as  do  acrostics 
or  jig-saw  puzzles.     We  mark  the  same  glittering 


72         USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE 

eye,  the  same  absorption,  the  same  enthusiasm. 
But  I  do  beg  the  enthusiasts  to  remember  that  their 
pastime  is  a  game,  and  not  to  confuse  it  with  the 
study  of  poetry. 

The  following  passage  will  serve  to  remind  the 
reader  of  the  immense  volume  of  literature  of  which 
it  is  typical.  When  written  in  America,  this  sort  of 
analysis  is  apt  to  go  one  further  in  abstraction 
and  to  take  the  form  of  some  sort  of  chart  or  graph. 
This  particular  passage  was  written  by  a  man  with 
a  real  power  of  appreciating  poetry.  Its  subject  is 
Tennyson's  Tithonus  : 

*  As  in  Ulysses,  the  movement  is  slow  and  regular ; 
but  it  is  varied  in  a  different  manner.  Inversions  are 
fewer ;  there  are  but  7  beginning'  inversions,  an 
average  of  9  per  cent.,  and  there  is  i  caesura!  in- 
version. Weak  measures  are  slightly  more  abundant, 
48  per  cent.,  and  the  failure  of  the  stress  in  the  fourth 
measure  amounts  to  a  characteristic  of  the  rhythm. 
One-half  of  the  weak  measures,  18,  fall  in  this 
place;  there  are  9  in  the  third  pvosition,  4  in  the 
fifth,  and  3  and  2  in  the  first  and  second,  respectively. 
There  are  21  spondees  or  28  per  cent.,  and  the  frequency 
of  these  in  the  second  measure  constitutes  another 
characteristic  of  the  rhythm.  The  second  position,  with 
9,  is  followed  by  the  first  with  6;  the  third  has  4,  and 
the  fourth  and  fifth,  i  each.  There  is  less  than  average 
frequency  of  run-on,  26  per  cent.  But  one  of  the  most 
striking  characteristics  of  the  rhythm  is  the  extra- 
ordinary number  of  lines  without  interior  pause,  35,  or 
46  per  cent.  So  that  while  the  proportion  of  end-stops 
is  usually  great  there  is  still  an  unusually  high  expK>nent 
of  fluency,  3.37.' 

It  was  chiefly  in  its  capacity  as  the  enemy  of  the 
mot  juste  that  the  Imagists  fell  foul  of  regular  metre 


USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE         JT^ 

and  endeavoured  to  set  up  in  its  stead  their 
cadenced  verses,  but  it  is  amusing  to  see  the  way 
in  which  their  cadences  immediately  became  almost 
as  tyrannical  as  a  strict  form  like  the  sonnet.  We 
have  rather  a  good  instance  of  this  in  Miss  Amy 
Lowell's  Patterns  : — 

*  I  walk  down  the  garden  paths, 
And  all  the  daffodils 

Are  blowing-,  and  the  bright  blue  squills. 

I  walk  down  the  patterned  garden  paths 

In  my  stiff  brocaded  gown. 

With  my  powdered  hair  and  jewelled  fan, 

I  too  am  a  rare 

Pattern.    As  I  wander  down 

The  garden  paths. 

*  My  dress  is  richly  figured. 
And  the  train 

Makes  a  pink  and  silver  stain 

On  the  gravel,  and  the  thrift 

Of  the  borders. 

Just  a  plate  of  current  fashion, 

Tripping  by  in  high-heeled,  ribboned  shoes. 

Not  a  softness  anywhere  about  me, 

Only  whalebone  and  brocade. 

And  I  sink  on  a  seat  in  the  shade 

Of  a  lime  tree.     For  my  passion 

Wars  against  the  stiff  brocade. 

The  daffodils  and  squills 

Flutter  in  the  breeze 

As  they  please. 

And  I  weep ; 

For  the  lime  tree  is  in  blossom 

And  one  small  flower  has  dropped  upon  my  bosom. ' 

This  is  the  opening  of  the  poem  and  the  threads 
are  caught  up  and  repeated  at  the  end.     Mrs.  Wil- 


74         USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE 

kinson  gives  an  interesting  analysis  of  it  in  her 
book  New  Voices  : — 

*  This  poem  is  designed  in  cadences,  and  in  spite  of 
its  great  variety,  the  symmetry  is  to  be  found,  first  of 
all,  in  the  repetition,  at  more  or  less  regular  intervals, 
of  the  typical  or  pattern  cadence  of  the  poem,  **  In  my 
stiff  brocaded  gown."  (It  is  the  cadence  that  is  re- 
peated, not  the  words.)  The  cadence  is  reiterated  in 
lines  like  the  following  : — 

**  Makes  a  pink  and  silver  stain  '' 
**  Only  whalebone  and  brocade  '* 
**  Underneath  my  stiffened  gown  '* 
**  But  she  guesses  he  is  near'' 
*'  With,  the  weight  of  this  brocade  " 
**  By  each  button,  hook  and  lace  " 
*^  Aching,  melting,  unafraid." 

*  In  other  lines  we  find  this  cadence  varies  just  a 
little  bit.  Perhaps  an  accent  will  be  changed,  perhaps 
a  word  with  two  short-sounding  syllables  will  be  sub- 
stituted for  a  word  with  one  long-sounding  syllable, 
thus  giving  the  line  a  new  effect  with  the  same  time 
value  as  the  typical  cadence.  (For  there  is  certainly 
such  a  thing  as  quantity  in  English  poetry,  and  the 
greatest  poets  have  felt  it  and  used  their  knowledge 
of  it,  although  they  have  not  argued  about  it  overmuch.) 
Such  slightly  varied  lines  are  like  the  following  : — 

**  Just  a  plate  of  current  fashion  " 
And  the  sliding  of  the  water  ' 
Bewildered  by  my  laughter 
Underneath  the  fallen  blossoms 
Fighting  with  the  Duke  in  Flanders."  ' 

Is  not  the  tyranny  of  the  cadence  apparent?  No 
poet  not  bitterly  constrained  by  his  form,  would 
write  such  a  line  as  : — 

*  Just  a  plate  of  current  fashion  .  .   .' 

or  use  that  shocking  word  '  tripping.'    The  phraseo- 


USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE         75 

logy  of  the  whole  poem  is  an  outrage !  But  we  do 
not  feel  all  the  indignation  with  Miss  Lowell  that 
we  might  feel,  because  we  realise  that  she  is  not 
really  writing  poetry  at  all,  but  making  a  metrical 
experiment.  But  such  technique  is  a  curious  result 
of  all  the  protestations  of  the  vers  librists ! 

Mr.  Maurice  Baring  is  a  poet  who  has  written 
very  elaborately-constructed  vers  libre.  His  beau- 
tiful rhymed  poem  '  In  Memoriam  '  to  Lord  Lucas 
is  a  good  example  of  the  technique  of  this 
form.  The  poem  is  very  carefully  tied  together. 
He  often  uses  verbal  repetition  to  fulfil  the  function 
of  regular  metre,  for  example  : — 

*  I  brushed  the  dream  away,  and  quite  forg-ot 

The  nightmare's  ugly  blot. 

So  was  the  dream,  forgot.     The  dreami  came  true. ' 

Here  is  the  Hebrew  device,  only  both  sense  and 
words  are  repeated,  not  sense  alone,  as  in  '  A  man 
of  sorrow  and  acquainted  with  grief,'  which  repre- 
sents the  usual  Hebrew  form.  But  the  best 
passage  in  the  poem  comes  with  the  climax  of  the 
narrative  : — 
*  And  after  days  of  watching-,  days  of  lead, 

There  came  the  certain  news  that  you  were  dead. 

You  had  died  fighting-,  fig-hting  against  odds, 

Such  as  in  war  the  gods 

Aethereal  dared  when  all  the  world  was  young; 

Such  fighting  as  blind  Homer  never  sung, 

Nor  Hector  nor  Achilles  never  knew; 

High  in  the  empty  blue. 

High,  high,  above  the  clouds,  against  the  setting  sun. 
The  fight  was  fought,  and  your  great  task  was  done.' 

There   is   one   inconvenience  which   haunts    all 


76         USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE 

irregular  metre,  and  that  is  that,  no  normal  having 
been  established,  the  reader  does  not  always  know 
how  the  poet  wants  his  quantities  and  emphasis 
arranged.  For  in  a  regular  poem  the  general  beat 
of  the  lines  serve  as  implied  stage  directions  to  the 
reader  in  any  doubtful  passage.  If.  in  vers  libre 
the  quantities  are  understood  wrongly  the  result 
may  be  the  accidental  changing  round  of  accented 
and  unaccented  parts  of  the  line,  and  this  may 
make  a  considerable  difference  even  in  the  sense, 
But,  of  course,  the  whole  question  of  free  or  strict 
metre  is  one  of  balance.  There  are  certain  grea:t 
obvious  advantages  in  the  use  of  rhyme  and  of 
strict  metre.  Besides  its  wonderful  power  of  clinch- 
ing and  emphasising  a  statement  rhyme  is  delightful 
in  itself.  Frankau's  '  One  of  Us  '  or  Byron's  '  Don 
Juan  '  would  be  stripped  as  bare  by  the  omission 
of  female  rhymes  as  by  the  omission  of  female 
characters. 

This  business  of  rhyme  and  metre  has,  of  course, 
also  got  to  be  considered  in  conjunction  with  poetic 
architecture.  The  proper  choice  of  the  pattern  of 
the  poem  will  obviously  be  affected  by  the  scale.  A 
villanelle  is  charming,  but  imagine  a  long  narrative 
poem  in  a  succession  of  them?  When  we  consider 
this  balance,  this  choice  between  the  exact  thought 
and  beautiful  word  and  the  regularity  of  metre,  let 
us  never  forget  one  thing — that  is,  not  to  sell  our 
souls  to  the  devil  and  then  not  get  the  price. 
Which  brings  us  back  again  to  the  consideration  of 
prosody.  There  are  certain  principles  concerning 
the  reader  which  the  writer  must  never  forget.  Many 


USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE         "JJ 

rhyme  schemes  have  been  worked  out  by  prosodists, 
many  arrangements  of  caesuras,  pauses,  of  emphatic 
and  unemphatic  syllables  which  the  reader  will 
never  in  this  world  detect.  Most  readers  cannot, 
for  instance,  carry  a  rhyme  in  their  heads  for  more 
than  four  lines,  and  there  are  a  thousand  and  one 
systems  of  chain  rhymes,  hidden  alliterations,  and 
so  on,  which  can  be  at  the  same  time  extremely 
crippling  to  the  poet's  sense,  and  null  and  void  to 
the  reader.  Of  course  there  exist  many  poems 
which  are  valuable  and  beautiful  solely  on  account 
of  their  rhythms  and  of  their  actual  physical  sound 
arrangements,  poems  in  which  sense  and  niceness 
of  vocabulary  are  both  secondary.  Such  poems 
have  been  written  at  all  dates,  and  they  are 
common  to  all  countries — Persian  literature  is  full 
of  them,  the  Elizabethans  constantly  wrote  them, 
Tennyson  delighted  in  them.  Such  poems  are  not 
much  written  nowadays  though  search  would  reveal 
instances  of  this  pure  '  singing '  in  Mr.  Graves' 
and  Mr.  de  la  Mare's  work,  and  I  think  the  fol- 
lowing three  verses  from  a  war  poem  by  Mr.  Brett 
Young  (a  poet,  alas !  now  turned  novelist)  will 
justify  the  labour  that  we  may  choose  to  give  to 
the  study  of  rhythm  : — 

*  Through  Porton  village,  under  the  bridge 

A  clear  bourne  floweth,  with  grasses  trailing, 
Wherein  are  shadowis  of  white  clouds  ssailing, 
And  elms  that  shelter  under  the  ridge*. 

*  Over  the  bridge  where  the  shallow  races, 
Under  a  clear  and  frosty  sky ; 

And  the  winterboume,  as  we  marched  by. 
Mirrored  a  thousand  laughing  faces. 


78         USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE 

*  By  stagnant  waters  we  lie  rotten. 
On  windless  nights,   in  the  lonely  places, 
There,  where  the  winter  water  races, 
O,  Porton  river,  are  we  forgotten  ?  ' 

The  images  are  not  particularly  good,  in  fact  we 
are  not  very  much  convinced  that  the  marching 
battalion  could  be  reflected  in  '  racing  shallows.' 
The  sky  seems  to  be  both  cloudy  and  clear  at  the 
same  time,  whilst  the  contrast  between  the  English 
and  the  Flemish  countryside  has  been  made  many 
times.  Again  *  floweth '  is  a  disagreeable  archaism, 
and  so  is  '  wherein.'  But  how  obviously  silly  and 
beside  the  point  are  such  criticisms !  The  poet  has 
not  been  aiming  at  perfection  along  these  lines; 
he  has  been  trying  to  make  a  lovely  piece  of  music, 
and  he  has  made  it.  The  reader  will  probably  find 
the  tune  and  rhythm  running  in  his  head  apart  from 
the  words. 

II 

There  is  one  last  minor  point  that  I  should  like 
to  consider  here,  and  that  is  the  relations  of  voice 
and  verse,  of  musical  and  poetic  rhythms.  I  pro- 
pose to  consider  it  exclusively  from  the  poet's 
point  of  view  because  ignorance  of  music  makes  me 
apprehend  their  combination  from  this  standpoint 
naturally,  and  also  because  it  is  a  point  of  view 
which  has  been  too  little  considered.  I  think  that 
all  critics,  literary  and  musical,  are  of  opinion  that 
there  is  something  wrong  with  such  a  setting  as  say 
'  Rule  Britannia  ' :  — 

*  The  na-tions  no-o-o-0K>t  so  blessed  a-a-as  thou 
Shall  i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-in  their  turn  to  ty-y-y-y-rants  fall.* 


USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE         79 

Some  modern  poets  are  of  opinion  that  music  is 
always  more  or  less  inimical  to  poetry  when  it  is 
coupled  with  it.  They  would  have  us  say  our  lyrics 
and  sing  '  Do,  Ray,  Me,'  or  in  an  uncomprehended 
foreign  language  which  is  the  same  thing.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Hammersmith  production  of  The 
Beggar's  Opera  undoubtedly  shows  us  examples  of 
music  and  words  which  are  insignificant  apart,  but 
which  joined  together  form  a  whole  that  is  irre- 
sistible.   When  we  come  to  print  it,  there  is  really 

nothing  in  such  a  song  as  this  without  its  melting 

01  *• » 

^^    '      *  If  the  heart  of  a  man  is  oppressed  with  cares, 

The  mist  is  dispelled  if  a  woman  appears ; 
,  Like  the  notes  of  a  fiddle,  she  sweetly,  sweetly 
Raises  our  spirits  and  charms  our  ears.* 

But  musicians  say  that  there  is  very  little  in  the 
melting  air  without  the  seductive  words.  Together 
they  are,  as  the  young  lady  in  Fielding  would  say, 

*  pure.' 

That  is  why  I  don't  think  that  I  can  quite  agree 
with  Mr.  Vachel  Lindsay,  who  does  not  consider 
that  words  and  music  can  ever  make  a  whole  satis- 
factory to  a  person  who  cares  for  poetry.  But  to 
consider  some  modern  songs.  Lord  Berner's  set- 
ting,  for  instance,  of  a  pleasing,   undistinguished 

*  Lullaby '  of  Dekker's  makes  too  much  of  the 
words.    He  kills  them  with  over-emphasis. 

Mr.  Eugene  Goosens  has  tried  to  be  onomato- 
poeic with  Richard  Barnefield's  '  Philomel  ' ;  the 
beginning  of  it  alone  is  effective  : 

*  As  it  fell  upon  a  day 
In  the  merry  month  of  May, 


8o         USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE 

Sitting  in  a  pleasant  shade 
Which  a  grove  of  myrtles  made, 
Beasts  did  leap  and  birds  did  sing, 
Trees  did  grow  and  plants  did  spring.' 

So  far,  SO  good — a  delightful  tripping  tune. 

*  Everything  did  banish  moan 
Save  the  nightingale  alone  :    > 
She,  poor  bird,  as  all  forlorn, 
Lean'd  her  breast  up  till  a  thorn 
And  there  sung  the  dolefulPst  ditty, 
That  to  hear  it  was  great  pity.' 

All  this  woe  Mr.  Goossens  took  far  too  seriously, 
and  later  on  when  the  poet  mourns  with  her  : — 

*  Ah  !   thought  I,  thou  mmim'st  in  vain. 
None  take  pity  on  thy  pain  : 
Senseless  trees,  they  cannot  hear  thee. 
Ruthless  beasts  they  will  not  cheer  thee ; 
King  Pandion  he  is  dead, 
All  thy  friends  are  lapp'd  in  lead  ' ; 

he  takes  the  affair  almost  an  grand  iragique.  The 
fact  is,  of  course,  that  the  rhythmical  changes  of  the 
verse  itself  are  quite  emphasis  enough  for  the  mild 
academic  passion  of  the  poem.  Sir  Thomas 
Wyatt's  '  Appeal '  has  real  passion,  and  of  this  Mr. 
Eugene  Goossens  in  his  setting  has  made  full  use. 
Was  it  not  also  partly  successfully  wedded  to  the 
music  because,  like  the  lyrics  in  The  Beggar's 
Opera,  it  has  a  rather  unsatisfactory  flat  rhythm  of 
Its  own .  :  <  p^^^  ^ji^  ^j^^^  j^^^^  ^^  ^j^^g^ 

That  hath  given  thee  my  heart 
Never  for  to  depart. 
Neither  for  pain  nor  smart : 
And  wilt  thou  leave  me  thus? 
Say  nay  !     Say  nay  !  ' 


USES  AND  ABUSES  OF  METRE  8l 

Miss  Frances  Cornford's  delicate  '  The  Rag- 
wort '  is  largely  swamped  by  Mr.  Arthur  Bliss's 
music,  but  '  The  Dandelion  '  (by  the  same  author 
and  set  by  the  same  composer)  is  an  admirable 
example  of  a  happy  alliance  between  voice  and 
verse  : — 

*  The  children  with  their  simple  hearts, 

The  lazy  men  that  ride  in  carts, 

The  little  dogs  that  lollop  by, 

They  all  have  seen  its  shining-  eye ; 

And  every  one  of  them  would  say 

They  never  saw  a  thing  so  gay.' 

Here  again  the  rhythm  is  not  intrinsically  strong, 
and  therefore  the  poem  proves  ductile  to  the  music. 
Mr.  Bliss  has  even  been  bold  enough  to  introduce 
repetition  into  the  words  :  this,  instead  of  being  dis- 
agreeable, proves  delightful.  '  The  Dandelion,' 
of  which  I  have  quoted  the  second  verse,  is  a  very 
tightly  packed  short  poem,  and  we  are  glad  to 
have  '  simple  hearts,  simple  hearts/  and  '  little  dogs 
that  lollop  by,  lollop  by,  lollop  by!  One  would  say 
at  a  venture  that  Mr.  Bliss  was  fond  of  poetry,  for 
even  in  this  very  well  finished  little  poem  there  are 
weak  places,  and  he  does  not,  with  the  usual  fiendish 
pleasure  of  musicians,  pounce  upon  these,  dwell 
upon  them,  and  draw  them  out  until  the  unfortu- 
nate listener  squirms  with  the  verbal  infelicities. 
No,  he  covers  them  up  almost  as  would  an  intelli- 
gent reader. 


Chapter  X 

POETIC  ARCHITECTURE 

Perhaps  the  thing  that  has  been  most  often 
remarked  about  modern  poetry  is  the  fact  that, 
except  by  Mr.  Masefield,  very  few  long  poems  have 
been  written.  There  has  been  some  discussion  as 
to  the  cause  of  this,  those  who  do  not  like  modern 
poetry  of  course  saying  that  it  is  because  the  present 
age  lacks  the  strength  for  sustained  inspiration. 
Perhaps  a  study  of  some  of  those  long  poems  of  the 
past  which  have  not  been  wholly  successful  will  give 
us  the  best  notion  of  why  the  modern  poet,  for  the 
most  part,  writes  short  poems. 

Every  poet,  as  Mr.  Sturge  Moore  has  observed, 
when  he  comes  by  a  bit  of  the  true  gold,  has  to 
piece  his  treasure  out  with  a  greater  or  less  propor- 
tion of  '  any  material  that  comes  handy  '  before  he 
can  make  a  poem  out  of  it,  because  we  do  not 
demand  that  a  poet  should  be  a  jeweller.  We  want 
an  architect  or  sculptor.  But  there  is  something  in 
the  very  nature  of  poetic  inspiration  which  makes 
it  improbable  that,  unaided  by  a  more  pedestrian 
faculty,  it  should  be  capable  of  producing  a  whole 
at  all.     Shelley  in  his  '  Defence  of  Poetry '  gives 


POETIC  ARCHITECTURE  83 

a  very  good  account  of  the  '  afflatus  '  and  its  neces- 
sary succession  by  a  secondary  faculty  : — 

*  The  mind  in  creation  is  as  a  fading'  coal,  which  some 
invisible  influence,  like  an  inconstant  wind,  awakens  to 
transitory  brightness;  this  pov/er  arises  from  within, 
like  the  colour  of  a  flower  which  fades-  and  changes  as 
it  is  developed,  and  the  conscious  portions  of  our  nature 
are  unprophetic  either  of  its  approach  or  its  departure. 
Could  this  influence  be  durable  in  its  orig-inal  purity 
and  force,  it  is  impossible  to  predict  the  greatness  of 
the  results ;  but  when  composition  begins,  inspiration 
is  already  on  the  decline,  and  the  most  glorious  poetry 
that  has  ever  been  communicated  to  the  world  is  pro- 
bably a  feeble  shadow  of  the  original  conceptions  of 
the  poet  ... 

'  The  toil  and  the  delay  recommended  by  critics,  can 
be  justly  interpreted  to  m.ean  no  more  than  a  careful 
observation  of  the  inspired  moments,  and  an  artificial 
connection  of  the  spaces  between  their  suggestions,  by 
the  intertexture  of  conventional  expressions ;  a  necessity 
only  imposed  by  the  limitedness  of  the  poetical  faculty 
itself. ' 

The  modern  poet  must  still  add  his  bits  here  and 
there,  and  piece  out  the  results  of  his  first  poetic 
impulse  with  his  '  intertexture  of  conventional  ex- 
pressions.' But  whereas  Wordsworth,  often  almost, 
so  to  say,  buried  his  gold  idol  under  its  feet  of  clay, 
the  modern  poet,  even  where  his  gold  is  rather 
scanty,  adds  as  little  as  possible,  and — when  his 
poem  is  a  failure — often  produces  an  idol  not  only 
with  no  feet  at  all,  but  without  anything  whatever 
to  stand  upon.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  impulse 
— a  horror-struck  flying  from  the  long  and  the  tire- 
some— is  a  good  one.  It  certainly  enables  a  poet 
to  speak  to  a  larger  audience.     The  vast  tomes  of 


84  POETIC  ARCHITECTURE 

what  we  may  call  secondary  material  produced  by 
some  of  our  greatest  poets,  form  a  serious  barrier  to 
many  readers.  It  is  often  a  barrier  which  the  most 
careful  anthologizing  cannot  surmount,  for  the  gold 
and  the  clay  may  be  absolutely  inextricable.  On 
the  other  hand,  of  course,  the  modern  poet's  self- 
denying  ordinance  cuts  him  off  not  only  from  cer- 
tain aesthetic  effects  but  from  a  certain  sort  of 
reader  who  desires  narrative.  It  is  probably  as 
much  because  he  writes  narrative  poems  as  because 
on  the  whole  he  remains  the  best  modern  poet  that 
Mr.  Masefield  is  the  most  widely-read  of  his  con- 
temporaries. 

What  are  these  aesthetic  effects  which  can  only 
be  achieved  by  means  of  a  long  poem  ?  The  reader 
will  remember  the  climax  of  '  The  Everlasting 
Mercy '  when  the  hero  walks  out  on  a  fresh 
February  morning  and  watches  the  man  plough- 
ing, hears  the  birds  and  sees  the  sunrise  and  the 
first  light  glittering  on  the  cobwebs,  and  turns  and 
praises  God.  Detached  from  its  context,  this  is  a 
beautiful  passage,  but  its  effect  is  incomparably 
heightened  by  its  being  used  as  the  climax  to  the 
realism  and  often  brutality  of  the  earlier  part  of  the 
narrative. 

Another  effect  of  the  mere  length  of  a  poem 
is  that  the  reader  gets  into  the  mood  of  it.  The 
poet  dare  attempt  to  be  more  strange  or  subtle  in 
his  atmosphere  in  a  long  poem.  This  effect  be- 
comes pretty  obvious  if  we  try  reading  such  a  poem 
as  '  Endymion  '  through  and  then  dipping  into  it 
and  taking  selected  passages.     In  reading  solidly 


POETIC  ARCHITECTURE  85 

through  it  we  cannot  help  being  caught  in  the 
glamour  of  that  whole  magic  world,  our  mood  is  a 
pale  shadow  of  Keats'  when  he  wrote  it.  In  this 
life  of  enchantment  the  weaknesses  of  the  poem 
are  forgotten :  our  spirit  is  melted  by  its  soft 
beauties  :  we  no  longer  want  to  blame,  hardly  to 
criticise,  hardly  to  think  which  are  the  passages  of 
greatest  merit.  But  open  the  poem  here  and  there 
and  you  will  find  yourself  turning  on  to  some  of  the 
more  splendid  passages — the  description  of  Adonis' 
bower,  where  a  Cupid  kneels  playing  a  harp, 
'  Muting  to  death  the  pathos  with  his  wings,'  or  the 
description  of  Circe  and  the  ^  haggard  scene  '  when 
she  taunts  and  torments  her  train  of  beasts  and  the 
poor  elephant  pleads  vainly  for  release  from  the 
gross  flesh  in  which  she  has  imprisoned  him. 

Take  again  another  kind  of  atmosphere,  the 
effects  that  Mr.  Masefield  gets  in  '  Dauber ' — the 
fatigue  and  weariness  of  the  terrible  weeks  off  Cape 
Horn,  the  pitiless  iteration  of  the  storm,  the 
wretchedness,  exhaustion,  and  peril.  All  this  could 
not  possibly  have  been  brought  before  us  in  a  few 
lines.  The  work  is  done  cumulatively,  the  effects 
are  elaborately  led  up  to,  our  minds  are  prepared 
for  the  restless  desolation,  the  strain  and  agony  of 
this  prolonged  physical  wretchedness. 

If  Chinese  or  Japanese  conciseness  could  not 
possibly  give  us  these  effects,  obviously  on  the  other 
hand  certain  notions  gain  tremendously  by  shortness 
and  simplicity  of  statement.  Take  the  following — 
one  of  Mr.  Waley's  incomparable  '  Translations 
from  the  Chinese.'     The  effects  which  the  poet, 


86  POETIC  ARCHITECTURE 

Po  Chii-I,  is  aiming  at  here,  appear  to  me  to  be, 
first,  that  which  painters  often  try  to  get  in  rendering 
an  interior,  a  feeling  of  being  shut  in,  of  enclosure, 
of  intimacy.  With  this  is  connected  the  psycholo- 
gical introvertion  caused  by  illness;  the  sick  man 
by  reason  of  the  illness  is  necessarily  concerned 
with  his  own  body,  and  this  inevitably  leads  him  to 
the  consideration  of  his  own  mind.  Then  this 
notion  of  physical  and  spiritual  '  shut-in-ness  '  is 
to  be  shown  giving  way  to  a  larger  vision,  but  the 
reader  is  to  keep  the  tranquillity  of  the  Quietist 
with  his  consciousness  that  '  The  world  is  too  much 
with  us.' 

Sick  Leave. 

*  Propped  on  pillows,  not  attending  to  business ; 
For  two  days  I've  lain  behind  locked  doors. 
I  begin  to  think  that  those  who  hold  office 
Get  no  rest,  except  by  falling  ill  ! 
For  restful  thoughts  one  does  not  need  space ; 
The  room,  where  I  lie  is  ten  foot  square. 
By  the  western  eaves,  above  the  bamboo  twigs, 
From  my  couch  I  see  the  White  Mountain  rise, 
But  the  clouds  that  hover  on  its  far-distant  peak 
Bring  shame  to  a  face  that  is  buried  in  the  World's  dust.* 

The  shortness  of  the  poem  exactly  suits  the 
nature  of  the  ideas  which  the  poet  intends  to  convey. 
An  extra  line  or  two,  further  descriptions  of  sensa- 
tions, room,  or  landscape,  would  have  weakened  the 
sharpness  of  the  impression. 

Japanese  poems  are  shorter  still.  The  '  tanka,' 
of  five  lines,  is  the  form  in  which  almost  all 
Japanese  poetry  is  written,  and  for  centuries  the 
poetic  inspiration  of  this  language  has  been  con- 


POETIC  ARCHITECTURE  87 

fined  to  a  plot  of  ground  far  narrower  than  that  of 
the  sonnet.  There  are  many  poems  in  Japanese 
consisting  of  three  lines  only.  Here  are  three 
examples,  again  from  Mr.  Waley's  translations  : — 

FujiwARi  No  Okikaze. 

*  With  voice  unceasing 
Sing,  O  nightingale  ! 
In  one  year 

Even  as  much  as  twice 
Can  Spring  come?  ' 

HiTOMARO  (?). 

*  My  thoughts  are  with  a  boat 
Which  travels  island-hid 

In  the  morning  mist 

Off  the  shore  of  Akashi — ■ 

Dim,  dim  !  ' 

Anon. 
*  O  cuckoo. 
Because  the  villages  where  you  sing 
Are  so  many, 

I  am  estranged  from  you,  even 
In  the  midst  of  my  love  !  * 

This  last  poem  the  commentator  says  '  He 
speaks  in  a  parable  to  a  girl  that  had  many  hearts.' 
This  explanation  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of 
some  of  the  qualities  which  shortness  will  make  us 
value  in  a  poem.  Only  in  a  short  poem  could  the 
anonymous  writer's  little  frail  '  touch  and  go  "  alle- 
gory have  been  stated  just  so,  and  only  by  an 
audience  who  realised  the  double  entendre  that  is 
intended  can  the  five  lines  be  properly  enjoyed.  It 
is   nearly   always    a   small,    close,    highly-civilised 


88  POETIC  ARCHITECTURE 

literary  society  that  produces  such  poems.  Such  a 
poem  is  really  the  half  word  addressed  to  the  right 
hearer.  It  relies  upon  allusion,  upon  the  double 
meaning  which  must  not  be  pressed  too  far. 

Japanese  and  Chinese  poetry  and  the  poems  of 
the  Greek  anthology  have  all  of  them  'something  of 
the  quality  of  attar  of  roses ;  the  poet's  thought  and 
intention  has  been  distilled  down.  The  tiny  size 
of  the  poem  makes  us  conscious  of  an  immense 
work  of  selection  and  self-denial — the  poet  had 
a  great  deal  to  say,  but  not  choosing  to  leave 
his  reader  with  a  blurred  image,  chose  only  this, 
the  very  essential  oil  of  his  thought.  But  being 
poetry,  and  therefore  unlike  a  direct  statement  in 
'  tw^o  words,'  this  potent  drop  spreads  by  implica- 
tion its  aroma — bitter  or  sweet — over  a  wide  tract. 


II 

Let  us  consider  the  case  of  the  poet  who, 
desiring  to  produce  a  given  effect,  express  a  given 
thought,  sits  down  to  consider  whether  it  shall  be 
expressed  in  an  epic  or  an  epigram.  In  all  prob- 
ability, of  course,  no  poet  has  ever  done  such  a 
thing,  for,  as  Shelley  says  somewhere,  '  every  artist 
worth  the  name  is  something  of  an  artificer ' ;  in- 
spiration and  a  general  sense  of  its  proper  technical 
expression  should  be  simultaneous  births.  But  if  a 
poet  ever  did  find  himself  in  this  impossible  situa- 
tion of  knowing  very  w^ell  what  he  wanted  to  say, 
but  having  no  idea  of  how  to  say  it,  he  w^ould,  as  far 
as  length  is  concerned,  find  himself  pulled  by  two 


POETIC  ARCHITECTURE  89 

different  impulses.  Earlier  in  the  book,  in  trying 
to  define  poetry,  I  said  I  believed  that  we  should 
find  that  one  of  its  essential  characteristics  is  com- 
pression, and  gave  as  an  example  Keats'  '  Ode  to  a 
Nightingale,'  together  with  a  most  unsuccessful 
prose  rendering  of  two  verses  of  it,  which  expressed 
half  as  many  ideas  in  twice  as  many  words.  The 
poet  would  find  then  on  the  one  hand  that  the  fact 
that  he  intended  to  express  his  thoughts  in  verse 
would  tend  to  shorten  them,  they  would  automa- 
tically, to  borrow  a  metaphor  from  the  kitchen, 
'  reduce  '  and  '  thicken.'  On  the  other  hand,  In 
writing  poetry  ideas  have  a  tendency  to  shoot  like 
a  twig  in  the  spring.  '  Lo  fresh  Flora  has  flourished 
every  spray !  '  The  dry  stick  of  a  concept  is  apt  to 
double  its  size  by  putting  forth  leaves  and  flowers, 
often  flowers  of  illustration.  We  can  see  these  two 
processes  at  work  very  clearly  in  the  case  of 
eighteenth  century  writers — indeed,  the  period  has 
an  inestimable  dissecting-room  value — Poets  were 
then  often  quite  consciously  engaged  in  the  pursuit 
of  writing  alternate  epigrams,  i,e.  a  couplet  or,  at 
most,  two  couplets  of  intensely  reduced  matter — 
and  then  throwing  out  a  sort  of  bow  window  of  a 
metaphor  beginning  probably  '  Thus  when '  or  '  As 
thus.'  Young  will  afford  the  diligent  reader  capital 
examples  of  what  I  mean.  He  would  write  such 
lines  as  : — 

*  Autumnal  Lycie  carries  in  her  face 
Memento  mori  to  each  public  place  *  ; 

and  then  next  moment  would  let  an  idea  shoot  and 
blossom  out  from  a  '  So  have  we  seen '  like  so  much 


90  POETIC  ARCHITECTURE 

Bindweed,  until  it  half  covered  the  garden  plot  of 
his  page. 

This  question  of  length  is  very  often  one  upon 
which  young  writers  stumble.  Till  he  becomes  a 
true  craftsman,  when  inspiration  and  the  technique 
which  expresses  it  will  rise  entwined  into  his  con- 
sciousness, we  shall  often  find  the  'young  poet 
expressing  a  pleasing,  simple  concept  in  a  diluted 
rambling  form  and  producing  a  bad  poem.;  some- 
times all  such  a  poem  wants  is  to  be  boiled  down  and 
made  into  an  essence.  Many  a  piece  of  metred 
prose  could  be  restored  to  a  state  of  poetry  by  a 
mere  process  of  condensation.  Again  we  some- 
times see — these  cases  are  rarer — inexpert  poets 
w^hose  thoughts  are  subtle,  but  who  feel  their 
energies  flagging  over  sustained  work,  and  who 
therefore — (unwilling  to  sacrifice  their  subtlety) — 
produce  short  poem^s  either  of  incomprehensible 
crabbedness  or  poems  which  are,  so  to  speak, 
hollow.  The  reader  is  conscious  that  the  poet  is 
trying  to  give  him  something,  but  the  thought  has 
escaped  from  the  cage  in  which  he  tried  to  put  it. 
The  reader  has  a  sensation  which  he  may  very 
very  likely  express  by  saying  that  there  is 
'  nothing  in  '  the  poem.  This  is  a  trouble  which  is 
specially  apt  to  occur  in  a  case  where  the  poet  has 
tried  to  use  symbolic  phraseology. 


Chapter  XI 

POETIC    SUGGESTION 

A  WORK  of  art,  may,  besides  being  considered  as  a 
thing  in  itself,  be  regarded  as  an  instrument  with 
which  to  affect  the  minds  of  others.  If  my  theory 
that  poetry  is  primarily  a  subtle,  communicating 
medium  is  a  correct  one,  a  careful  consideration  of 
what  we  may  call  the  '  receiving  end  '  of  the  poem  is 
obviously  worth  while.  But  thought  for  the  reader 
is  just  what  poets  are  occasionally  apt,  with  a  bean 
geste  to  refuse  to  take,  at  any  rate,  consciously. 
When  I  say  poets  in  this  instance,  I  really  mean 
English  poets,  for  the  poets  of  the  classical  tradition, 
the  tradition  of  the  greater  part  of  French,  Spanish, 
and  Italian  prose  and  verse,  have  always  kept  this 
side  of  their  business  well  in  mind.  Flaubert,  in 
writing  of  the  novel  enlarges  on  the  point.  As 
long  as  he  is  reading,  the  reader's  emotions  are 
to  be  controlled,  his  mind  is  to  be  canalised.  His 
powers  are  to  be  directed  in  a  certain  way,  the  pace 
of  his  reading  is  to  be  regulated,  he  is  to  become 
the  creature — the  puppet — of  the  artist  to  whose 
suggestion  he,  in  the  act  of  reading,  submits 
himself. 

The  reader  should  just  as  much  become  the  ser- 
vant of  the  poet,  a  fact  which  was  perceived  by 


92  POETIC  SUGGESTION 

Dryden  when  he  wrote  Alexander' s  Feast,  Here 
Timotheus      .  _  ^  ^^^^^  ^^  ^^^^^ 

Amid  the  tuneful  quire/ 

seems  to  regard  the  resources  of  his  art  rather  as  a 
doctor  might  regard  the  British  Pharmacopoeia. 
Here  is  a  drug,  a  strain  of  the  lyre,  by  means  of 
which  he  can  quicken  the  patient's  pulse,  here  an- 
other by  which  he  can  retard  it.  Here  is  a  stimulant 
by  which  he  can  rouse  him  to  energy.  Here  is  a  de- 
pressant (a  sort  of  poetical  salycilate)  by  which  he 
can  plunge  him  into  the  depths  of  pessimism.  Here 
is  opium  which  ^can  make  the  victim  slough  off  in 
a  drowsy  ecstasy  all  care  for  this  world  and  the 
next.  Here  is  an  aphrodisaic  by  which  he  can 
make  him  believe  '  the  world  well  lost  for  love.' 

So  Timotheus — apparently  by  means  of  classical 
allusions  in  whose  efficacy  we  do  not  quite  believe — 
first  brings  Alexander  to  believe  himself  a  second 

J^^'^-  *  With  ravish M  ears 

The  monarch  hears, 
Assumes  the  gfod, 
AfFects  to  nod, 
And  seems  to  shake  the  spheres.' 

Next  Timotheus  sings  of  Bacchus,  the  beautiful, 
the  light  of  heart,  in  triumphant  jollity  : — 

*  Bacchus,  ever  fair  and  youngf. 
Drinking  joys  did  first  ordain ; 
Bacchus'  blessings  are  a  treasure, 
Drinking  is  the  soldier's  pleasure  : 

Rich  the  treasure, 

Sweet  the  pleasure ; 
Sweet  is  pleasure  after  pain.' 


POETIC  SUGGESTION  93 

*  Soothed  with  the  sound,  the  king  grew  vain; 
Fought  all  his  battles  o'er  again ; 
And  thrice  he  routed  all  his  foes,  and  thrice  he  slew  the  slain.  * 

But  the  King  grew  tiresome  in  his  synthetic  cups, 
and  Timotheus,  choosing  a  mournful  muse,  switches 
him  off  and  sings  of  poor  Darius,  who,  though  great 
and  good,  was  '  overcome  by  fate  ' : — 

*  Fallen,   fallen,   fallen,   fallen, 
Fallen  from  his  high  estate. 
And  weltering  in  his  blood.' 

Alexander's  mood  again  responds,  and  he  grows 
'  the  joyless  victor,'  and  sighs  in  pity  at  the  blind 
turns  of  chance.  Timotheus  smiles  to  see  his  charm 
work,  and  holding  that  love  is  next  to  pity, 

*  Softly  sweet,  in  Lydian  measures. 
Soon  he  soothed  his  soul  to  pleasures. 

War,  he  sung,  is  toil  and  trouble ; 

Honour,  but  an  empty  bubble; 
Never  ending,  still  beginning. 

Fighting  still,  and  still  destroying  ; 
*^  If  the  world  be  worth  the  winning, 

Think,  O  think  it  worth  enjoying ! 
Lovely  Thais  sits  beside  thee. 
Take  the  good  the  gods  provide  thee  !  " 

The  many  rend  the  skies  with  loud  applause ; 

So  love  was  crownM,  but  music  won  the  cause.' 

After  this,  however,  Alexander  apparently  got 
thoroughly  drunk,  and  in  the  rest  of  his  vicissitudes, 
Timotheus  was  unfairly  assisted  by  Bacchus. 

Of  course,  the  modern  poet  is  met  at  once  with 
a  difficulty,  unknown  to  the  old  experimenter. 
Timotheus  had  his  Alexander  before  him,  and  could 
watch  the  effects  of  his  enchantment,  or,  to  resume 


94  POETIC  SUGGESTION 

the  medical  metaphor,  could  be  sure  that  his  patient 
v/as  taking  his  medicine  regularly,  and  reacting 
normally.  It  is  in  the  matter  of  this  closeness  of 
relation  between  poet  and  audience  that  the  coterie 
is  so  useful.  A  coterie  is  really  formed  by  any 
company  of  people  who  have  read  the  same  books 
and  seen  the  same  plays,  and  among  whom  are  to 
be  found  auditors  and  performers.  If  the  poet 
believes  himself  to  be  appealing  chiefly  to  a  par- 
ticular circle,  whose  antecedents  and  tastes  he  to 
some  extent  understands,  he  is  able  in  his  poetry  to 
use  many  means  which  are,  in  the  case  of  audiences 
who  are  an  unknown  quantity,  impossible  to  him. 
As  I  said  in  the  chapter  on  Poetic  Architecture, 
Greek,  Japanese,  and  Chinese  lyric  poetry  are  cases 
in  point.  Most  of  such  poems  are  very  brief — the 
Japanese  tanka  is  only  five  lines  long — and  the  poet 
produces  a  great  part  of  his  effects  by  allusion. 
Now  allusion  is  one  of  the  most  useful  of  poetic 
devices;  it  is  to  be  classed  as  an  overt  sort  of 
symbolism.  If  you  say  the  four  names  '  King  Lear, 
Jehu,  Robinson  Crusoe,  Mr.  Greatheart,'  to  me, 
and  if  you  know  that  I  have  been  brought  up  in 
England,  you  can  calculate  that  such  and  such 
images  will  be  called  up  in  my  mind. 

We  may  not  know  each  other  personally,  but  from 
the  fact  that  you  are  pretty  sure  that  I  have  read  that 
v/hich  will  enable  me  to  take  your  meaning,  you  and 
I  are  in  a  comparatively  good  position  to  communi- 
cate with  one  another.  If  you  knew  nothing  about 
me  at  all  except  the  fact  that  I  was  able  to  read 
English,  in  trying  to  affect  my  emotions,  you  v/ould 


POETIC  SUGGESTION  95 

be  very  much  in  the  position  of  a  doctor  who  had 
to  prescribe  for  a  patient  he  had  never  seen.  You 
would  only  be  able  to  use  a  very  limited  range  of 
drugs,  drugs  to  which  all  human  beings  were  known 
to  respond. 

Now  it  might  be  that  it  would  do  just  as  well 
in  your  poem  if  you  said  that  a  lady  was  more  chaste 
than  Dorigen,  or  more  voluptuous  than  Aquilina, 
that  a  philosopher  was  more  sophistical  than  Dr. 
Pangloss,  an  architect  another  Halvard  Solness, 
but  you  could  not  be  sure  that  I  as  '  the  general 
reader,'  should  know  what  you  meant  and,  there- 
fore, these  excellent  comparisons  would  be  useless 
as  a  means  of  conveying  your  meaning  to  me  except 
possibly  as  pleasantly  bemusing  scraps  of  rhetoric. 

If  then  you  are  am.bitious,  and  are  not  content 
to  write  for  a  minority  of  knov/n  cultivation,  if 
you  aspire  to  an  almost  universal  comprehension, 
you  will  have  in  the  case  of  all  your  secondary 
material  to  go  rather  far  back  and  consider  what 
are  the  images,  allusions,  metaphors  and  associa- 
tive stimuli  that  '  everybody  '  understands.  You 
m.ust  constantly  envisage  a  type  of  reader  if 
you  v/ant  to  play  your  tunes  on  his  heart  strings. 
How  carefully  Sheherazada,  whose  head  depended 
upon  it,  studied  her  audience  of  one  !  How  care- 
fully the  lady  in  Shaw's  '  Man  of  Destiny  '  studies 
first  the  Lieutenant  and  then  Napoleon,  and  fits  her 
cozening  tales  to  their  psychology.  It  is  so  she 
makes  her  puppets  dance. 

But,  says  the  poet,  you  admit  I  can  only  do  this 
as  far  as  the  bits  are  concerned  that  I  add  to  my 


96  POETIC  SUGGESTION 

poems.  Now  I  write  lyrics  and  so  add  very  little, 
so  your  advice  is  worthless.  But  this  is  only  in 
part  true.  Technical  devices  which  in  one  poem 
have  been  employed  by  the  conscious  part  of  the 
poet's  creative  mechanism,  in  the  next  will  probably 
have  been  handed  on  to  his  unconscious  part.  That 
is ;  the  cunning  of  every  artificer  becomes  in  the  end 
second  nature.  If  this  were  not  a  fact,  aesthetic 
theories  would  not  be  worth  the  ink  in  which  they 
were  set  down. 

Memory  is  apparently  to  a  great  extent  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  subconscious  part  of  our  nature. 
What  to-day  we  do  with  our  wills,  if  it  does  not 
contradict  some  deep-seated  desire  in  the  subcon- 
scious, will  to-morrow  find  itself  adopted  by  the 
subconscious  and  coming  out  of  it  automaticallly. 
This  is  of  course  the  foundation  of  all  habit  and  of 
most  sorts  of  technical  skill. 

It  is,  I  think,  in  giving  a  reason  for  the  considera- 
tion of  his  audience  by  the  poet  that  the  theory  of 
art  as  communication  developed  in  this  book  is 
chiefly  useful.  English  literature  has  really  suf- 
fered because  we  have  always  held  a  false  aesthetic 
theory  concerning  the  relations  of  poet  and 
audience.  The  notion  that  the  poet  was  there  to 
create  beauty,  to  pour  forth  his  soul,  has  been  the 
cause  of  a  great  deal  of  the  gratuitous  Goethic  wild- 
ness  that  has  spoiled  so  much  of  our  literature. 
Writers  of  the  Latin  races  have  of  course  hardly 
suffered  from  this  malady  at  all. 

I  have  quoted  Mr.  Hueffer  on  this.  As  a  student 
of  Continental  literature,  he  is  acutely  aware  of  the 


POETIC  SUGGESTION  97 

terrible  way  in  which  this  lack  ot  consideration  for 
the  reader  has  led  English  poets  into  a  thousand 
faults.  They  maunder  on  through  pages  of  dull- 
ness, they  build  '  huge  heaps  of  littleness  '  in  long 
meandering  poems,  they  hide  their  treasure  in  a  per- 
fect jungle  of  false  starts,  bad  similes,  and  dis- 
cursive interludes,  a  jungle  which  a  false  aesthetic 
creed  has  made  them  too  proud  to  prune.  Consider 
Spenser's  '  Faerie  Queene,'  consider  the  '  Duchess 
of  Malfi,'  consider  '  Hamlet,'  consider  '  Clarissa,' 
consider  '  Tristram  Shandy,'  and  half  of  Scott's 
novels,  and  then  think  what  a  little  Racineism,  a 
little  Volaireism  in  the  way  of  form  would  have 
done  for  these  half-buried  pyramids  of  genius. 

But,  of  course,  once  the  poet  has  embarked  on 
the  idea  that  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  create  beauty  and 
to  express  his  soul,  it  is  quite  jiatural  that  he  should 
turn  with  scorn  from  the  idea  of  making  his  sublime 
creation  agreeable  to  a  reader.  We  cannot  help 
feeling  that  there  is  something  magnificent  in  this 
Gothicism,  this  turning  from  filthy  lucre.  Steven- 
son, who  deliberately  wrote  to  please,  and  learnt 
to  subordinate  his  soul  to  that  end,  shows  a  little 
meanly  by  comparison  with  Wordsworth  or  Emily 
Bronte.  But  if  we  consider  art  as  a  means  of  com- 
munication, if  we  think  how  Spenser's  or  Richard- 
son's literary  self-indulgence  has  hindered  the 
conveyance  of  their  message,  we  shall  I  think,  get 
a  just  view  of  the  arts.  The  '  best-seller  '  Steven- 
sonian  point  of  view  is  a  bad  one  because  it  is  one 
that  denies  the  value  of  the  message  to  be  conveyed, 
and  we  may  compare  the  works  of  such  writers  to 


98  POETIC  SUGGESTION 

telephones  in  the  hands  of  men  who  have  nothing 
to  say.  On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  considers 
his  inspiration  as  a  thing  holy  and  untouchable  is 
like  a  man  who  has  a  message,  but  scorns  the  prac- 
tical sordid  telephone  by  which  he  might  deliver 
.  it,  and  merely  shouts  it  to  the  empty  air. 

If  the  reader  thinks  that  this  making  of  a  fetish 
of  the  fruits  of  inspiration  is  a  thing  of  the  past  I 
can,  alas,  assure  him  from  personal  experience  that 
he  is  wrong.  Every  Editor  of  a  Poetry  Depart- 
ment will  believe  me  when  I  say  that  I  often  get 
letters  from  writers  in  whose  works  I  have  ventured 
to  suggest  emendations,  saying  that  they  are  aware 
that  the  passage  complained  of  is  a  blemish,  but 
that  as  it  was  part  of  the  original  inspiration,  it  is 
sacred  and  cannot  be  interfered  with.  I  have  two 
recent  instances  in  mind.  It  is  often  difficult  to  con- 
vince such  writers  that  the  message  to  be  conveyed 
may  be  sacred,  but  that  the  form  in  which  it  is  to  be 
conveyed  is  a  matter,  not  of  principle,  but  of  com- 
modity. It  is  not  the  form  of  words  which  is  divine. 
Often  a  verbal  formula  will  be  inspired  to  its  writer, 
when  to  a  reader  it  is  patent  nonsense.  Our  dreams 
have  surely  allowed  most  of  us  to  experience  both 
sides  of  this.  We  have  been  both  poet  and  auditor. 
The  classical  example  is,  of  course,  that  of  the 
philosopher  who  woke  up  in  the  middle  of  the  night 
feeling  that  he  had  discovered  the  secret  of  the 
universe.  Not  trusting  his  memory  in  so  vital  a 
matter  he  took  pencil  and  paper  and  wrote  down 
the  inspiration,  feeling  that  in  the  morning  the 
whole  face  of  the  world  would  be  changed.    When 


POETIC  SUGGESTION  99 

he  woke  up  he  found  that  he  had  written  the  fol- 
lowing sentence,  '  There  are  no  differences  but 
differences  of  degree  between  different  degrees  of 
difference  and  no  difference.'  After  prolonged 
cogitation  he  was  chagrined  to  have  to  admit  that 
the  statement  was  (Completely  circular,  and  led 
nowhere.  This,  to  my  mind,  does  not,  in  itself  dis- 
prove that  he  had  for  a  moment  in  the  middle  of 
the  night  known  the  secret  of  the  universe.  What 
it  does  prove  is  the  value  of  having  as  far  as  possible 
an  efficient  vehicle  in  which  to  convey  ideas.  His 
form  of  words  proved  a  sieve  incapable  of  con- 
taining the  meaning  which  he  had  entrusted  to  it. 
There  are  quantities  of  poems  like  that.  For  poems 
for  the  most  part  deal  with  subtler  things  that  are 
differences  of  '  degree.'  However,  in  the  literary 
works  which  we  are  considering,  as  '  Polyolbion,' 
or  Spenser's  '  Faerie  Queene,'  or  '  The  Excursion,' 
the  problem  is  not  quite  like  that  of  the  dream 
formula,  for  the  content  has  not  here  exactly  leaked 
away  (this  is  more  characteristic  of  lyric  poetry),  it 
is  merely  that  a  jungle  has  made  it  impossible  for 
the  reader  to  get  at  it.  To  return  to  our  original 
medical  metaphor,  the  drug  has  been  administered 
right  enough,  but  in  such  a  form,  the  opium  em- 
bedded in  such  pounds  of  dough,  the  caffeine  in 
such  pints  of  milk,  that  it  will  probably  pass  through 
the  body  of  the  patient  without  affecting  him  in  any 
way.  The  poet  has  got  to  consider  what  are  the 
subsidiary  drugs  which,  made  up  in  the  prescrip- 
tion, will  enable  his  patient  to  digest  and  assimilate 
the  principal  drug.     These  assistant  drugs  are,  of 


lOO  POETIC  SUGGESTION 

course,  all  the  poetic  devices  which  I  have  enume- 
rated in  previous  chapters.  First  come  recurring 
rhythyms,  repetition,  the  alternate  balancing  and 
contrasting  of  allied  but  different  ideas,  and  so  on. 
All  these  are  the  rhythmic  and  incantational  stock- 
in-trade  of  poetry,  the  devices  by  which  certain 
too-insistent  mental  elements  in  the  reader  can  be 
lulled  to  sleep.  Secondly,  we  have  the  images, 
direct  or  associative,  the  symbols  and  comparisons 
by  which  the  poet's  ideas  are  conveyed  to  the  system 
prepared  by  his  rhythms. 

Now  though  the  reader  is  the  more  strongly 
affected  and  modified  person  of  the  two,  he  being 
the  passive  agent  in  the  interchange  of  ideas,  we 
shall  find  that  the  poet,  largely  because  he  is  (or 
he  would  not  be  a  poet)  the  more  sensitive  party, 
is  very  much  affected  by  his  audience  and  its 
attitude,  and  this  side  of  the  exchange  I  shall 
consider  in  the  next  chapter. 


Chapter  XII 
THE  POET  AND  HIS  AUDIENCE 

It  has  been  the  complaint  of  the  old-fashioned 
of  all  ages  that  the  young  of  their  generation  are 
addicted  to  coteries.  Chaucer,  Gower,  and  Dunbar 
were  no  doubt  dubbed  members  of  a  Frenchified 
clique.  Marlowe,  Greene,  Nash,  and  the  rest 
formed  a  typical  mutual  admiration  society.  Dr. 
Johnson  and  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  were  the  leaders 
of  a  small  urban  club.  The  Lake  poets  were  a  close 
intimate  corporation.  The  pre-Raphaelites  wrote 
and  painted  for  each  other.  The  Georgians  desire 
the  praise  of  other  Georgians;  half  the  Cubists 
painted  for  Matisse  or  Piccasso,  the  other  half  for 
Mr.  Roger  Fry.  Now  this  is  as  natural  and  as 
desirable  as  the  division  of  the  various  portions  of 
the  human  race  into  '  nations  and  languages.'  Of 
all  the  inhabitants  of  the  globe,  there  are  at  this 
moment  perhaps  about  two  hundred  million 
people  who  read  the  English  language.  But  the 
book  which  could  be  voluntarily  read  by  them  all 
would  probably  not  be  one  which  reached  a  very 
high  level  of  art.  Only  a  very  simple  love-story  or 
cookery-book  could  in  fact  achieve  half-an-hour's 
tolerance  from  such  an  audience,  and  a  cookery- 
book    which    would    please    human    beings    from 


I02  THE    POET   AND   HIS   AUDIENCE 

Sutherlandshire  via  Sherry's  in  New  York  to  the 
Malay  States;  woiilcf  not  be  likely  to  thrill  even  one 
individual. 

Misunderstanding  is  the  begetter  of  dullness. 
The  pound  of  butter  would  find  five  o'clock  insuf- 
ferably tedious.  The  best  talk  is  the  talk  which 
springs  up  between  intimates  who  have  the  same 
tastes,  have  seen  the  same  places,  and  are  familiar 
with  the  same  authors.  To  the  ill-informed  upon  any 
given  subject  you  must  speak  of  what  is  obvious — 
hence  the  penny  Press.  Therefore  the  artist  who 
at  all  times  seeks  to  pierce  beyond  the  obvious  may, 
nay,  must  address  himself  to  the  '  good  listener  ' 
to  whom  the  '  half-word,'  the  single  stroke  of  the 
brush,  which  is  sometimes  all  of  the  vision  that  he 
can  bring  back  with  him,  will  be  significant. 

Consider  once  more  the  case  of  Sheherazada. 
How  curious  it  must  have  been  to  weave  fancies  for 
one  only.  If  she  knew  what  books  the  King  had 
read,  how  allusive  she  could  have  been,  how  quickly 
have  given  him  the  shades  of  meaning  she  wanted, 
how  easily  have  made  him  catch  her  points. 

It  would  have  seemed  delightful  for  perhaps  the 
first  hundred  of  the  thousand  and  one  nights  to 
address  this  coterie  of  one,  for  after  the  first  five 
or  six,  she  must  have  been  thorough  en  rapport 
with  him.  But  I  should  guess  that  after  the  first 
hundred,  perhaps  she  began  to  find  out  the  dis- 
advantages of  the  coterie.  For  we  cannot  reduce 
even  so  good  a  thing  as  a  coterie  to  the  absurdity  of 
a  membership  of  one,  without  discovering  that  is  has 
latent  defects.    Suppose  the  King  was  colour  blind, 


THE   POET   AND   HIS   AUDIENCE  IO3 

or  had  never  been  any  good  at  geography,  or  had  a 
horror  of  insects,  and  utterly  refused  to  listen  to  any 
similes  about  busy-bees  and  industrious  ants? 
Sheherazada  with  her  resourceful  subtle  mind  must 
often  have  found  that  Pegasus  flew  with  wings 
clipped,  have  longed  for  a  wider  public  than  the 
insatiable  monarch  provided — have  felt  a  little  as 
Henry  James  might  have  felt  if  he  knew  that  his 
only  auditors  were  the  members  of  an  Agricultural 
Workers'  Union  by  whom  his  work  was  to  be  read 
and  then  burnt. 

But  if  a  coterie  be  of  a  fair  size — a  coterie  to  pos- 
sess whose  ear  means  that  you  must  print  your 
books,  not  circulate  them  in  MS — then  the  poet  can 
be  perfectly  happy  in  making  use  of  all  the  know- 
ledge that  he  may  happen  to  possess.  If  Jones 
does  not  take  his  erudite  comparison  of  the  action 
of  love  to  an  ebb-tide  with  an  off-shore  wind,  or 
alternatively  to  the  action  of  Streptococcus,  to  a 
two-year-old  filly  in  her  first  race,  or  to  an  a  priori 
assumption,  he  can  be  sure  that  Smith  or  Robinson 
will.  There  will  be  someone  in  his  audience  who 
knows  as  much  pathology  as  he  does,  who  knows  as 
much  metaphysics  as  he  does,  who  is  even  more  of 
a  nautical  expert,  or  a  racing  man. 

But,  says  the  reader,  now  you  are  in  effect  argu- 
ing against  the  stifling  effect  of  the  coterie,  and 
saying  that  the  larger  the  audience  the  better,  to 
which  I  reply  that  you  have  missed  the  point. 
These  comparisons  that  our  resourceful  poet  has 
made  are  only  the  trimmings  on  his  poem.  They 
are  not  absolutely  essential  to  the  comprehension 


I04  THE   POET   AND   HIS   AUDIENCE 

of  the  word.  What  is  essential  is  a  certain  standard 
of  education,  The  poet  must  know  that  his  audi- 
ence are  used  to  certain  ideas.  The  more  sensitive 
he  is,  the  more  he  is  likely  to  approximate  his  work 
to  his  estimation  of  his  audience's  intelligence, 
though  not,  of  course,  only  to  that  of  hi-s  immediate 
audience.  An  appeal  to  Posterity  complicates  the 
case  of  the  poet.  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  the  typical 
orator,  catches  the  tone  of  whatever  audience  he 
may  happen  to  be  addressing.  His  Limehouse 
style  was  perfectly  distinct  from  the  style  in  which 
he  addresses  the  House  of  Commons.  That  again 
is  unlike  that  in  which  he  speaks  in  Welsh  to  his 
local  Welsh  admirers.  If  we  were  to  isolate  him  on 
several  occasions  before  certain  different  types  of 
audiences,  by  telling  him  that  there  were  no  re- 
porters present,  we  should  find  that  the  character  of 
those  to  whom  he  spoke  affected  his  utterances  still 
more  markedly.  So  in  a  lesser  degree  is  it  with  the 
poet.  If  he  has  a  friend  who  he  knows  will  read 
his  work  and  this  friend  has  an  exquisite  fancy  and 
a  fine  taste,  he  will  polish  up  the  secondary  con- 
scious portions  of  his  production  with  great  care. 
The  knowledge  of  this  critical  element  in  his  audi- 
ence will  also,  if  his  friend  be  kind  and  appreciative, 
at  once  restrain  and  enliven  his  subconscious 
creative  process. 

But,  the  poet  may  object :  '  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
do  not  write  for  any  audience  at  all.  I  write  be- 
cause I  have  a  sort  of  desire  to  write,  or  rather  am 
conscious  of  acute  discomfort  if  I  do  not  write.  I 
experience  a  kind  of  headache  and  write  it  off,  much 


THE  POET  AND  HIS  AUDIENCE        IO5 

as  I  might  try  to  walk  off  its  physical  counterpart. 
In  practice,  I  never  think  of  my  audience.  Your 
arguments  are  specious,  but  they  do  not  accord  with 
facts.' 

Here  I  come  to  what  is  a  little  mental  experiment 
with  which  I  think  I  can  prove  rhy  point  that  the 
audience  does  matter,  even  to  the  most  superior  and 
high-sniffing  poet.  Consider  for  a  moment  what 
would  happen  if,  as  a  poet  sat  at  his  desk,  there 
entered  to  him  an  old  gentleman  who  offered  to  buy 
his  entire  output  from  now  on  for  ever,  and  to  pay 
a  price  more  than  generous  for  lyric,  sonnet,  epic, 
triolet  and  epigram,  provided  that  he  might  burn 
every  poem  as  he  bought  it,  and  that  the  poet  pro- 
mised to  keep  no  copy.  Suppose  the  poet  was  very 
hard  up,  and  suppose  that  he  agreed  to  this  bargain. 
What  would  be  the  effect  on  his  work }  According 
to  the  theory  that  art  is  the  highest  form  of  self- 
expression  and  that  the  artist  cares  only  for  the 
finished  product  and  nothing  for  potential  readers, 
we  should  be  obliged  to  say  that  it  would  have  no 
effect  at  all  and  that  the  poet  would  continue  to 
write  and  to  polish  with  all  his  former  care.  He 
would  probably  console  himself  by  showing  each 
of  his  productions  to  a  friend  or  two  before  the  old 
gentleman  called  on  Monday  morning  for  the  last 
week's  output.  But  supposing  one  day  the  old 
gentleman  discovered  the  poet's  habit  of  Sunday 
night  readings  and — finger  shaken  in  reproof  of 
such  subterfuge — refused  to  buy  unless  it  were 
stopped.  Suppose  the  poet  to  be  still  very  poor. 
Suppose  he  again  agrees.     Would  not  the  quality 


I06        THE  POET  AND  HIS  AUDIENCE 

of  his  work  very  soon  deteriorate  ?  It  would  begin 
by  his  leaving  an  inappropriate  epithet  here  and 
there,  a  discursive  passage,  an  ill-thought  out 
simile,  but  I  think  it  would  end  with  a  rhyming  dic- 
tionary and  very  little  care  except  for  the  old  gentle- 
man's price.  And  supposing  after  a  week  or  two  of 
this,  the  old  gentleman  changed  his  terms  a  little 
and  explained  the  purpose  of  his  eccentric  conduct 
to  the  young  man.  He  held  the  belief  that  poetry 
was  pernicious,  that  although  produced  by  a  set  of 
worthy  young  men,  yet  it  did  in  the  world  all  the 
harm  that  the  little  boy  had  up  before  the  magis- 
trate attributes  to  the  cinema.  Hence  he  conceived 
himself  as  doing  the  greatest  possible  service  to 
mankind  in  buying  up  and  burning  the  products  of 
a  hundred  facile  pens.  He  yisited  in  half  a  hun- 
dred houses  round  Oxford,  was  known  to  the 
porters  of  half-a-dozen  colleges.  What  would  the 
poet  say  to  a  contract  ?  It  must  be  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  to  write  so  much  verse  and  write  it  only  to 
be  burned,  and  his,  the  old  gentleman's,  end  would 
be  equally  well  served  by  a  promise  not  to  write  any 
more. 

*  I  have  no  objection  to  subsidising  you.  It  is  to 
your  art,  not  your  character  that  I  object.  Con- 
tract with  me  for  a  weekly  sum,  therefore,  not  to 
write  any  poetry.  I  demand  nothing  but  your  pro- 
mise. Such  an  arrangement .  I  may  point  out,  my 
young  friend,  would  bring  in  the  same  financial  re- 
turn, and  would  give  you  leisure  for  those  rational 
occupations  for  which  the  exercise  of  your  poetic 
faculties  at  present  gives  you  so  little  opportunity.' 


THE  POET  AND  HIS  AUDIENCE        lO/ 

Do  you  not  think  that  after  three  weeks  of  indignant 
refusal  the  poet  would  agree?  I  think  he  would, 
and  I  think  that  if  he  were  a  real  poet  he  would  very 
soon  retract  his  promise,  repudiate  the  old  gentle- 
man and  all  his  theories,  refuse  ever  to  see  him 
again  and  begin  to  send  his  verse  round  to  editors 
once  more. 

Now,  if  we  accept  the  theory  of  art  as  a  form  of 
communication  we  shall  not  be  bound,  in  believing 
this,  to  believe  that  the  poe^t  was  not  a  sincere 
maker  of  beauty  or  that  he  was  in  search  of  praise 
or  that  he  was  in  any  way  actuated  by  vain-glorious 
motives.  The  fact  is  that  the  poet  is  perpetually 
engaged  in  conjugating  a  transitive  verb.  He  is 
an  active  agent  in  an  exchange  of  ideas,  but  he  and 
his  readers  ought  never  to  forget  that  he  is  also  a 
special,  sensitized  human  being.  Inevitably  for 
different  companies  he  will  be  a  different  person,  he 
will  write  better  for  a  wise  than  for  a  silly  public. 
His  audience,  therefore,  has  a  responsibility  to-^ 
wards  him.  Not  to  take  the  trouble  to  understand 
his  good  work  is  as  unfriendly  in  them,  as  it  is  to 
praise  him  when  he  writes  badly.  But  this  matter 
of  praise  and  blame  belongs  more  properly  to  the 
chapter  on  criticism,  for,  in  my  opinion,  one  of  the 
chief  duties  ot  the  critic  is  to  act  as  spokesman  for 
the  else  dumb  public. 


PART   III 

(FOR  MISSIONARIES) 


*  Often  the  sexual  instinct  has  a  vast  power  over  a  boy's, 
mind,  because  it  means  mystery  and  romance  in  a  thoroug^hly 
prosaic  world;  and  the  world  has  become  prosaic  to  him 
because  all  the  desires  of  his  spirit  have  been  suppressed.  * 

Dr.  Crichton  Miller. 


Chapter  XIII 

POETRY  AND  EDUCATION 

A  Committee,  among  whose  members  were  Sir 
Henry  Newbolt,  Mr.  John  Bailey  and  Sir  Arthur 
Quiller-Couch,  was  recently  appointed  by  the 
President  of  the  Board  of  Education 

*  To  inquire  into  the  position  occupied  by  English 
(Languag-e  and  Literature)  in  the  educational  system  of 
England,  and  to  advise  how  its  study  may  best  be  pro- 
moted in  schools  of  all  types,  including  Continuation 
Schools,  and  in  Universities  and  other  Institutions  of 
Higher  Education,  regard  being  had  to  : — 

(i)  The  requirements  of  a  liberal  education; 

(2)  The  needs  of  business,  the  professions,  and  public 

services,  and 

(3)  The  relation  of  English  to  other  studies.' 

The  Committee  issued  a  report  ((The  Teaching 
of  English  in  England.  London:  H.M.  Stationery 
Office,  1/6  net).  This  is  a  most  enlightened  docu- 
ment and  really  embraces  the  consideration  of  in 
how  far  the  English  language  will  serve  as  a  vehicle 
for  the  humanities. 

We  all — except  apparently  Mme.  Montessori — 
know  the  part  which  fairy  tales  and  nursery  rhymes 
play   in   the   education   of   little   children.      They 


1 1  2  POETRY  AND  EDUCATION 

satisfy  the  child's  appetite  for  beauty.  In  such 
things  most  children  find  their  first  aesthetic  plea- 
sure, and  at  the  same  time  learn  about  such  things 
as  cats,  cows,  weddings  and  funerals,  high  moun- 
tains and  deep  rivers.  But  the  same  needs  in  the 
older  child  at  school  have  not  been  very  well  under- 
stood or  catered  for. 

But  to  return  to  the  Committee.  So  wide  were 
their  terms  of  reference,  that  they  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  they  must  decide  what  was  meant  by 
the  term  *  A  liberal  education,'  and  pronounce  at 
large  upon  what  were  to  be  the  aims  of  such  a 
breeding  : 

*  Education  is  not  the  same  thing  as  information,  nor 
does  it  deal  with  human  knowledge  as  divided  into  so- 
calle3  subjects.  It  is  not  the  storing  of  compartments 
in  the  mind,  but  the  development  and  training  of  facul- 
ties already  existing.  ...  It  is,  in  a  word,  guidance  in 
the  acquiring  of  experience.  Under  this  general  term 
are  included  experiences  of  different  kinds;  those  which 
are  obtained,  for  example,  by  manual  work,  or  by  the 
orderly  investigation  of  matter  and  its  qualities.  The 
most  valuable  for  all  purposes  are  those  experiences  of 
human  relations  which  are  gained  by  contact  with  human 
beings.  .  .  .  Education  is  complete  in  proportion  as  it 
includes  within  its  scope  a  measure  of  knowledge  in  the 
principal  sciences  and  a  measure  of  skill  in  literature, 
the  drama,  music,  song,  and  the  plastic  arts ;  but  not 
all  of  these  are  equally  useful  for  the  training  of  the 
young.  We  recognise  fully,  on  the  one  side,  the  mora], 
practical,  educational  value  of  natural  science,  on  the 
other  side  the  moral,  practical,  educational  value  of  the 
arts  and  of  all  great  literatures  ancient  or  modern.' 

What  subject  or  what  arrangement  of  curriculum 
will  give  us  the  best  value.'* 


POETRY  AND  EDUCATION  II3 

*  We  make  no  comparison,  we  state  what  appears  to 
us  to  be  an  incontrovertible  primary  fact,  that  for  Eng- 
lish children  no  form  of  knowledge  can  take  precedence 
of  the  English  Language  and  Literature  :  and  that  the 
two  are  so  inextricably  connected  as  to  form  the  only 
basis  possible  for  a  national  education/ 

Most  of  those  who  are  taking  the  trouble  to  read 
this  book  will  probably  not  want  to  be  persuaded 
that  it  is  good  for  a  child  to  be  brought  up  in  the 
love  of  good  poetry,  but  in  case  one  of  the  uncon- 
verted should  have  penetrated  so  far,  I  should  like 
to  say  that  I  believe  with  the  Committee  who 
reported  to  the  Board  of  Education  that  English 
literature  is  one  of  the  best  subjects  for  a  child  to 
study.  But  I  also  believe  that  a  perfectly  clear 
and  reasoned  case  can  be  made  out  for  the  solemnest 
and  most  official  inclusion  of  a  study  of  the  arts  in 
any  curriculum. 

And  here,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  one  of  the  singu- 
larly few  blemishes  in  an  otherwise  admirably- 
contrived  treatise.  The  Committee  never  once 
quite  face  the  arguments  put  forth  by  those  who 
prefer  music,  one  of  the  plastic  arts,  or  perhaps  the 
sciences  as  a  means  to  culture.  They  seem  par- 
ticularly rather  to  forget  that  there  are  those  who 
believe  that  the  mind  of  a  child  is  more  easily 
approached  through  science.  Mr.  Sanderson^  for 
example,  shows  in  his  flourishing  public  school  at 
Oundle  the  complete  working-model  of  a  curricu- 
lum arranged  from  the  opposite  standpoint.  Mental 
balance,  clear  thinking  and  intellectual  disin- 
terestedness are  best  taught  through  a  study  of  the 


114  POETRY  AND  EDUCATION 

palpable  wonders  of  the  material  world.  Through 
Darwin,  Pasteur,  Newton  and  Einstein,  say  the 
advocates  of  this  school,  we  can  more  easily  widen 
a  boy's  horizon  and  teach  him  to  think,  than 
through  Euripides,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Keats  and 
Shaw.  This  is  to  many  a  new,  and  even  a  some- 
what puzzling  point,  for  it  4s  only  lately  that  the 
scientist  has  admitted  the  fact  that  his  aims  and 
those  of  the  advocate  of  the  Humanities  are  iden- 
tical. Science  has  only  just  ceased  to  avow 
materialistic  ends.  To  hear  such  a  teacher  as  Mr. 
Sanderson  enlarging  almost  in  the  words  of  the  old 
pedagogues,  upon  the  advantages  of  '  a  sound,  for- 
tifying, scientific  curriculum  '  merely  for  the  for- 
mation of  mind  and  character  and  for  no  immediate 
material  end,  is  apt  to  prove  a  little  bewildering. 

The  scientist  has  yet  another  point  to  niake  as 
far  as  literary  expression  is  concerned  and  in  bring- 
ing out  Professor  Aydelotte's  theory  he  meets  the 
humanist  on  his  own  ground.  Professor  Aydelotte, 
criticizing  the  curricula  of  a  good  many  American 
Universities,  protests  vigorously  against  giving  boys 
and  girls  what  he  calls  '  the  abstract  gift  of  the  gab.' 
Make  boys  and  girls  think,  he  urges,  and  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten,  if  their  thoughts  are  burning 
enough,  the  gift  of  expression  will  be  added  unto 
them. 

This  is,  of  course,  our  old  friend  the  Owl  and 
the  Egg  dilemma  come  back  to  haunt  us.  Is  it  the 
desire  to  express  something  that  gives  us  the  pov/er 
of  expression,  or  is  it  desire  for  self-expression  that 
makes  us  seek  for  something  to '  express  .'^     I  be- 


POETRY  AND  EDUCATION  1 1 5 

lieve,  however,  that  this  will  not  be  found,  on 
examination,  to  be  quite  so  real  a  dilemma  as  it 
seems  at  first.  The  solution  of  it  is,  I  think,  to  be 
sought  in  the  region  of  a  concept  of  the  arts  such 
as  I  tried  to  outline  in  Part  II,  that  is  as  a  very 
subtle  form  of  communication  between  man  and 
man.  The  reader  may  remember  that  the  theory 
there  expounded  is  roughly  this  : 

We  are  each  one  of  us  shut  into  our  private  cell 
of  individual  sense  perception.  What  may  be 
called  a  direct  statement — it  may  be  conveyed  in  a 
statement  in  words,  in  a  chemical  formula,  or  in  an 
algebraical  equation — is  a  communication  between 
one  conscious  intelligence  and  another  conscious 
intelligence.  An  artistic  statement — it  may  be  one 
of  Beethoven's  posthumous  Quartets,  it  may  be  a 
passage  from  Early  Intimations  of  Immortality — is 
a  communication  both  between  one  mind  and  an- 
other, and  also  between  one  subconsciousness  and 
another.  The  arts  are  not,  I  believe,  so  much  an 
expression  of  emotion  as  has  been  formerly  thought 
— (the  emotions  are  amphibious  and  may  be  con- 
scious or  subconscious)— but  of  the  deeper  sub- 
structure of  the  human  mind.  The  artist's  state- 
ment is  the  statement  of  what  cannot  be  put  '  into 
so  many  words.' 

Though,  therefore,  it  is  conceivable  (I  am  far 
from  immediately  admitting  it)  that  the  exact 
sciences  form  the  more  perfect  medium  by  which 
one  mind  can  understand  another  mind,  yet  in  a 
curriculum  based  on  the  sciences  the  whole  mental 
substructures  are  left  out  of  account,  and  it  is  only 


Il6  POETRY  AND  EDUCATION 

in  the  domain  of  the  arts  that  we  find  the  entire 
nature  of  man  brought  into  play. 

A  boy  who  has  had  a  purely  scientific  education 
may  find  his  will  and  mind  beautifully  trained,  but 
I  believe  that  he  will  find  it  much  more  difficult  to 
manage  his  own  character  than  the  boy  who  has  had 
his  irrational  impulses  humanised  through  the  arts. 
The  scientifically  brought  up  boy  may  have  a  noble 
conception  of  duty,  a  fine  grasp  of  the  theory  of 
relativity,  but  some  day  he  will  fall  in  love,  or  suffer 
some  other  tremendous  disturbance  of  the  sub- 
conscious part  of  his  nature.  The  whole  of  the  cur- 
riculum which  has  educated  his  mind  and  his  will 
has  only  served  further  to  enslave,  repress,  and  put 
out  of  sight  the  subconscious  part  of  his  being,  and 
when  it  suddenly  springs  upon  him  like  an  armed 
man,  he  will  not  know  what  to  do  with  it.  Nothing 
in  what  he  has  learnt  during  the  time  when,  for 
instance,  the  sex  impulse  was  reasonably  manage- 
able has  now  any  bearing  upon  the  struggle  which 
he  has  to  go  through.  At  best  his  training  will  have 
given  him  such  tremendous  control  over  his  sub- 
conscious powers — will  have  so  stiffened  the  repres- 
sing element  in  him — that  his  character  will  not 
suffer  shipwreck,  but  even  in  this  case,  he  will  be 
losing  his  energies  in  a  conflict  which,  if  he  had 
humanised  the  forces  within  him,  might  have  been 
unnecessary.  Mr.  Sanderson  is  well  aware  how 
necessary  it  is  that  a  school  curriculum  should, 
above  all,  fit  a  boy  to  live  with  his  fellows  and  to 
understand  them,  and  a  very  good  understanding 
his  scholars  get  of  the  whole  of  the  rational  side  of 


POETRY  AND  EDUCATION  1 1 7 

human  nature.  If  strikes  were  always  caused  by 
low  wages  and  bad  houses;  if  wars  were  always 
caused  by  the  tyranny  of  a  ruler,  or  some  purely 
economic  condition;  if  the  laws  of  political 
economy  were  not  eternally  cut  across  by  the  laws 
of  human  psychology,  then  Mr.  Sanderson's  pupils 
would  be  well-equipped  indeed.  But  let  us  take 
a  fantastical  example,  I  think  that  a  child  brought 
up  exclusively  on  Mr.  de  la  Mare's  poetry  would 
have  a  better  chance  of  understanding  his  fellows' 
rare  rational  behaviour,  than  a  boy  educated  solely 
through  science  would  have  of  understanding  their 
irrational  behaviour. 

It  is  on  such  grounds  that  the  humanist  should, 
I  hold,  base  his  claim  against  the  scientist.  It 
is  on  these  grounds  that  he  can  maintain  that 
through  the  humanities  men  can  best  reach  that 
state  of  mutual  understanding,  sympathy  and  co- 
operation which,  were  it  achieved,  would  so  nearly 
bring  us  to  the  state  of  an  earthly  paradise.  But 
upon  this  side  of  the  question  the  compilers  of 
the  Report  have  not  touched  even  briefly,  and  those 
who  are  inclined  to  believe  in  the  approach  to  a 
civilised  character  and  a  developed  intelligence 
through  the  sciences  may  find  themselves  a  little 
antagonised  by  a  merely  tacit  assumption  that 
everyone  acknowledges  that  we  can  approach  cul- 
ture best  through  the  arts;  by  being  brought  into 
contact,  that  is,  with  other  and  great  minds  rather 
than  with  marvellous  and  stimulating  facts. 

But  in  this  book  we  are  not  considering  the  case 
of  the  arts  or  even  literature  in  general,  but  of 


1 18  POETRY  AND  EDUCATION 

poetry  in  particular,  and  there  still  remains  the 
minor  question  of  why  we  should  try  to  teach  chil- 
dren to  love  poetry  rather  than  one  of  the  other 
arts.  Here  I  should  like  to  put  forward  one  argu- 
ment and  one  only,  which  is  the  argument  of  sheer 
brute  convenience.  There  is  only  one-  art  of  which 
we  can  be  sure  that  its  practice  and  enjoyment  can 
be  pursued  by  all  the  children  whom  we  endeavour 
to  equip  for  the  world,  in  whatever  situation  they 
may  find  themselves.  Life  on  a  South  Sea  Island, 
or  in  an  oasis  in  the  Sahara,  or  at  sea,  or  in  Hull, 
or  in  Pernambuco,  will  make  it  impossible  for  the 
painter,  the  musician,  the  amateur  of  ballet  or  the 
drama  to  enjoy  his  particular  form  of  art.  A  Medici 
print  and  a  gramophone  enable  him  to  practice  with 
but  sadly  '  maimed  rights.'  But  the  man  who  loves 
poetry  can  nearly  everywhere  contrive  a  pencil,  a 
pad  of  paper  and  a  shelf  of  books. 

Again  from  the  teaching  aspect  in  the  case  of 
national  education  (the  aspect  dealt  with  in  the 
Report) — the  argument  of  brute  convenience — 
comes  in  once  more.  We  have  to  deal  with 
millions  of  children,  we  cannot,  alas,  just  now 
afford  to  supply  them  with  elaborate  tools  and 
instruments  :  we  cannot  even  easily  give  them  the 
necessary  space  in  which  to  cultivate  such  arts  as 
painting  and  dancing,  therefore  the  arts  of  litera- 
ture and  poetry  again  seem  our  readiest  tools. 

How  can  we  best  give  children  cause  to  love 
poetry.^  For  in  the  words  of  Ben  Jonson,  '  A  youth 
should  not  be  made  to  hate  study  before  he  know 
the  cause  to  love  it.'    There  are,  of  course,  a  number 


POETRY  AND  EDUCATION  I IQ 

of  admirable  text  books  to  be  had  on  teaching 
children  to  write  English,  in  which  the  reasons  for 
the  condemnation  of  the  *  composition '  and  the 
school  '  essay  '  are  set  out.  We  are  here  to  seek 
for  the  forms  of  literary  expression  along  the  lines 
of  what  young  children  would  choose  for  them- 
selves if  left  alone.  Some  quite  primitive  form  will 
please  them  best,  and  it  is  now  usual  to  begin  the 
young  author  with  that  most  primitive  form  of  all — 
the  story,  not  written,  but  told.  The  composition 
and  the  essay  both  have  their  counterpart  in  the 
companion  art  of  learning  to  read  good  literature. 
It  used  to  be — alas !  it  still  is  in  many  schools — the 
custom  to  go  through  a  play  of  Shakespeare's  a 
term.  By  the  old  system  the  soul-shaking,  breath- 
taking story  of  Macbeth  is  interrupted  for  the  pars- 
ing of  special  passages,  or  a  discussion  as  to 
whether  the  crow  flew  to  Rooky  or  to  Rocky  Woods. 
This  method  is  of  course  absolutely  fatal.  The 
modern  method  is  to  let  children  in  school  read  as 
grown-up  people  do,  quickly  and  currently,  with 
occasional  skipping  and  occasional  ignoring  of  diffi- 
cult passages.  But  granted  a  common-sense 
method,  there  still  remains  a  practical  question, 
What  poetry  should  be  put  into  the  hands  of 
children?  This  question  I  propose  to  discuss  in 
the  next  chapter. 


Chapter  XIV 
POETRY  AND  THE  CHILD 

*  Adult  life  is  the  antithesis  of  the  nursery  in  many 
respects,  but  it  resembles  it  in  this  :  that  it  is  still  a  narrow 
territory  of  familiar  things  on  the  edge  of  a  great  expanse 
of  unknown  country.* 

Dr.  Crichton  Miller. 

In  body,  mind  and  desires  the  child  of  six  differs 
completely  from  the  child  of  eleven,  and  the  child 
of  eleven  from  the  boy  or  girl  of  sixteen.  These 
differences  are  not  superficial,  they  seem  to  extend 
down  to  the  depths  of  the  child's  nature.  Poetry  is 
concerned  with  fundamental  things,  and,  therefore, 
if  we  are  trying  to  provide  a  child  with  a  poetic 
diet,  it  is  no  good  ignoring  or  slurring  over  these 
universal  age-made  differences.  In  its  relation  to 
poetry  I  think  we  might  divide  childhood  into  four 
ages — the  Age  of  Enchanment  up  to  about  seven 
or  eight;  the  Age  of  Reason  from  eight  to  twelve 
or  even  fourteen.  This  merges  into  the  Ethical 
Age  lasting  till  adolescence  brings  the  Age  of 
Love. 

Would  any  poetic  missionary  who  reads  this 
chapter  please  note  that  he  will  find  plenty  of  adults 
whose  poetical  appreciation  has  stuck  in  one  or 
other  of  these  categories. 


POETRY  AND  THE  CHILD  121 


I 


How  early  can  we  begin  to  read  poetry  to 
children,  how  soon  will  they  be  ready?  The 
answer,  of  course,  depends  on  your  definition  of 
poetry.  Mine  emphatically  includes  '  Hey,  diddle, 
diddle,'  and  ''  Pat  a  cake,  pat  a  cake,'  and  '  Leg 
over,  Leg  over,'  also  '  Over  the  Hills  and  Far 
Away '  and  '  Here  we  dance.  Looby.'  I  therefore 
should  give  the  age  as  about  nine  months  to  a  year. 
The  child  seems  to  find  in  this  sort  of  poetry,  in 
pure  colour  and  simple  tunes,  its  first  aesthetic 
experiences,  and  poetic  rhythms  are  often  popular 
before  the  child  can  speak  or  apparently  under- 
stand. But  leaving  Nursery  Rhymes  aside — in  a 
proper  house  the  child  will  absorb  them  naturally — 
I  found  that  my  two  daughters  when  aged  two  and 
three  and  a  half,  developed  a  taste  for  Mr.  de  la 
Mare's  poems,  three  and  a  half  repeating  : — 

*  Ann,  Ann  ! 

Come  !    quick  as  you  can, 
There's  a  fish  that  talks 
In  the  frying^  pan, 

Out  of  the  fat, 

As  clear  as  glass 

He  put  up  his  mouth, 

And  moaned  **  Alas  I  '* 

Oh,  most  mournful, 

**  Alas,  Alack,'' 

Then  turned  to  his  sizzling, 

And  sank  him  back.* 


122  POETRY  AND  THE  CHILD 

Two  years  old  was  almost  overcome  by  the  pathos 
of  this.  Rather  to  my  surprise  no  less  popular  was 
the  highly  metaphysical : — 

*  Do  diddle  di  do, 

Poor  Jim  Jay 
Got  stuck  fast 

In  Yesterday. 
Squinting"  he  was, 

On  cross-legs  bent^ 
Never  heeding 

The  wind  was  spent. 
Round  veered  the  weathercock, 

The  sun  drew  in — 
And  stuck  was  Jim 

Like  a  rusty  pin  .  .   .' 

I  always  dreaded  a  day  when  I  should  be  asked 
for  a  rational  explanation  of  this  poem,  but  I  am 
thankful  to  say  that  the  glamour  of  the  conception, 
or  the  swing  of  the  metre  carried  us  all  over  the 
danger. 

In  poems  of  pure  imagination,  I  noticed  a  marked 
difference  between  two  and  three,  three-years-old 
being  immensely  impressed  by  : — 

*  Someone  came  knocking 

At  my  wee,   small  door; 
Someone  came  knocking, 
Pm  sure-sure-sure;  .   .   .* 

while  two-years  did  not  care  for  it.  The  poems  in 
Miss  Rose  Fyleman's  The  Fairy  Flute  were  en- 
joyed by  three  years  old.  She  insisted  upon  having 
the  whole  book  read  to  her  backwards  and  forwards, 
over  and  over  again — swallowing  the  good  and  the 
bad  together.  There  are  some  very  bad  poems  in 
Miss  Fyleman's  book,  poems  that  are  all  that  verse 


POETRY    AND    THE    CHILD    .  1 23 

for  children  ought  not  to  be,  to  set  off  the  charm  of^ 
'  If  you  meet  a  Fairy/ 

On  the  whole,  however,  traditional  poems  or 
poems  by  very  '  expert '  mystics  will  be  what  chil- 
dren up  to  six  or  seven  will  like  best.  Who  has  not 
noticed  the  imaginative  child's  preference  for  the 
'  old  favourites,'  i,e.  the  traditional  fairy  tales. 
This,  I  believe,  is  neither  fortuitous  nor  the  result 
of  conservatism.  The  child,  even  if  it  has  not  got  a 
definite  racial  memory  (the  assertion  that  it  has  is 
often  made  but  seems  to  me  not  proved),  at  least 
responds  distinctly,  more  readily  to  primitive  than 
to  '  made-up '  symbolism.  The  traditional  fairy 
tale  and  nursery  rhyme  employ  the  real  dream 
symbolism.  We  shall  come  across  the  magic  Bull, 
the  Cross-road,  the  Bridge,  the  Serpent,  the  Deep 
River,  the  Dark  Forest.  Wolf  and  Witch  stand  for 
the  powers  of  evil;  the  Prince  or  Princess  suffer 
metamorphorsis  into  small  impotent  creatures; 
space  is  subject  to  such  devices  as  seven  league 
boot;  the  chronology  is  dream  chronology.  Then 
in  *  The  Tanglewood  Tales  '  the  seasonal  gods  and 
nature  myths  seem  to  strike  an  easy  response.  But 
now  and  then  the  modern  expert  mystic  obviously 
manages  to  '  strike  on  the  same  matchbox.'  Edward 
Lear's  Nonsense  Book,  '  Peacock  Pye,'  and  '  Alice 
in  Wonderland '  would,  1  think,  be  instinctively 
classed  with  '  The  Three  Sillies,'  '  The  Sleeping 
Beauty '  and  '  Childe  Roland  '  by  any  intelligent 
child.  Mr.  de  la  Mare's  poems,  some  of  Blake's 
Songs  of  Innocence,  Stevenson's  Child's  Garden  of 
Verses,  and  every  sort  of  legend  and  traditional 
tale  is  the  diet  for  this  age. 


124  POETRY  AND  THE  CHILD 

II 

The  child  ultimately  emerges  from  the  Age  of 
Enchantment — the  age  of  'The  King  of  Spain's 
Daughter/  '  The  Seven  Champions  of  Christen- 
dom/ '  Bre'er  Wolf/  of  Dis,  Prosepine  and  Pan- 
dora. When  it  is  between  eight  and  twelve,  shades 
of  the  prison  house  will  have  begun  to  close — the 
age  of  reason  has  set  in,  to  last  till  adolescence 
brings  a  fresh  age  of  vision.  We  shall  not  only 
have  to  feed  the  child  on  different  poetic  food,  but 
we  may  very  likely  have  to  justify  our  own  aesthetic 
creeds  before  the  child's  understanding.  He  or  she 
has  begun  to  ratiocinate,  and  we  generally  find  that 
a  developing  reason  is  employed  like  the  new  three- 
bladed  knife — it  is  tried  upon  every  substance  with 
which  its  owner  comes  into  contact.  It  is  a  rather 
destructive,  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  an  efficient  analy- 
tical weapon. 

Who  was  it  who  said  that  both  the  aim  and  the 
method  of  education  could  be  summed  up  as  'the 
effort  to  make  a  child  inquisitive  and  keep  it  so? ' 
If  the  child  has  been  properly  brought  up,  and  has 
a  rightly  enquiring  mind,  he  will,  as  soon  as  he 
enters  this,  the  angular  age,  begin  to  ask  awkward 
fundamental  questions  about  aesthetics.  One 
hideous  point  he  is  sure  to  bring  up,  probably 
towards  the  latter  part  of  this  period,  '  How  can 
you  prove  that  it  is  "  better  "  to  admire  Leonardo, 
Augustus  John  and  Flecker,  rather  than  Leader, 
Landseer,  Longfellow,  and  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox?  ' 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  cross-examined  elder  had 


POETRY   AND    THE    CHILD  1 25 

not  better  admit  at  once  that  he  cannot  prove  the 
superiority  of  good  art,  but  can  only  make  it  seem 
probable.  How?  It  is  no  good  to  talk  about  com- 
munication and  the  subconsciousness  to  an  urchin. 
The  most  effective  set  of  arguments  that  I  know  in 
the  favour  of  good  art  is  that  summarised  by  Mr, 
John  Bailey,  in  an  Eton  Ephemeral  which  appeared 
during  the  War,  called,  I  think  along  with  several 
rivals  or  successors,  '  The  Red  Cross.'  He  began 
by  saying  that  in  cricket  or  in  football  we  were 
ready  to  take  the  word  of  those  who  had  given  the 
most  serious  attention  to  the  game.  In  matters  of 
style,  if  we  were  not  ourselves  notable  players  we 
deferred  to  acknowledged  experts.  Would  readers 
grant  to  him  the  same  principle  in  the  arts  ? — grant 
that  on  the  whole  and  in  all  probability,  those  who 
gave  most  time  and  attention  to  aesthetics,  that  is, 
poets,  painters,  critics,  and  connoisseurs  were  likely 
to  understand  more  about  the  subjects  of  their 
studies  than  could  those  who  gave  the  arts  a  thought 
now  and  then  that  they  could  spare  from  other 
business.^  If  the  evidence  of  these  expert  witnesses 
were  to  be  given  the  special  weight  that  we  should 
give  to  that  of  professionals  in  any  other  sphere 
then  we  had  very  good  evidence  on  which  to  base 
the  assertion  that  Beethoven  was  a  better  musician 
than  the  composer  of  *  Where  my  caravan  has 
rested.'  It  would  probably  be  difficult  to  find  one 
lifelong  student  of  music  to  come  forward  and 
uphold  the  superiority  of  the  latter,  whereas  it 
would  be  easy  enough  to  produce  a  dozen  expert 
witnesses  in  favour  of  Beethoven. 


126  POETRY  AND  THE  CHILD 

Also,  good  art,  be  it  music,  painting,  or  poetry, 
produces  a  very  vivid  sort  of  pleasure  in  its  votaries. 
This  pleasure  has  not  got  a  very  satisfactory  name. 
It  has  often  been  called  aesthetic  ecstacy.  When 
we  are  at  the  '  receiving  end  '  of  a  good  piece  of 
art  we  experience  an  intense,  vivid  delight,  we  are 
lifted  out  of  ourselves,  our  stature  is  increased,  the 
beauty  of  a  picture  may  half  intoxicate  us,  the 
poignancy  of  a  play  or  of  a  poem  may  be  almost 
unbearably  vivid.  But  those  who  burn  candles  at 
lesser  altars,  never  experience  anything  more  in- 
tense than  a  slight  feeling  of  pleasure  and  grati- 
fication. They  know  a  passing  satisfaction  in  their 
Hawaian  walse,  their  '  Monarch  of  the  Glen,'  their 
'  Beautiful  Valley  of  Death,'  their  '  Chu  Chin 
Chov/,'  but  that  is  all.  Only  the  best  art  can  ulti- 
mately '  deliver  the  goods.' 

Mr.  Bailey,  therefore,  leaves  us,  if  not  with  an 
absolute  proof  of  the  superiority  of  '  good  art,'  at 
least  with  two  strong  arguments  to  make  in  its 
favour.  First,  the  claims  of  expert  witnesses, 
secondly,  the  argument  of  degrees  of  pleasure. 

I  ,  personally  think  that  in  putting  all  this 
forward  to  the  enquiring  child,  we  ought  to  qualify 
and  hedge  to  the  extent  of  saying  that  it  is  often 
in  pratice  difficult  to  divide  art  into  true  and 
spurious.  We  must  beware  of  aesthetic  snobbery. 
If  we  look  close  enough,  the  difference  between 
good  and  bad  is  here  of  degree,  not  of  kind.  We 
are  presented  with  a  white  shading  to  black,  and 
it  is  perhaps  doubtful  if  we  can  find  any  absolute 
white  works  of  art  while  absolute  black  works  of 


POETRY   AND    THE    CHILD  1 27 

art  are  also  rare.  It  is  especially  no  condemnation 
of  a  tune  or  verse  or  picture  that  it  is  popular.  Sir 
Edwin  Lutyens'  cenotaph  is  a  case  in  point.  There 
were  a  dozen  songs  that  were  intensely  beloved  in 
the  War  which  had  considerable  elements  of  charm. 
I  refuse  to  take  up  a  superior  attitude  to  '  I  do  like 
to  be  beside  the  seaside.'  I  consider  *  Pack  up  your 
troubles  '  keeps  well  this  side  of  sentimentality, 
and  I  find  something  rather  splendid  in  its  simpli- 
city. 'I  want  to  go  home  '  is  patchy,  but  strikes  in 
general  a  note  of  satire  and  melancholy  humour 
most  effectively.  And  if  we  must  discriminate  in 
favour  of  what  are  generally  esteemed  as  '  black 
works  of  art/  we  must  do  the  same  for  the  white 
pieces.  A  good  many  readers  are  intensely  bored 
by  Tennyson  and  Wordsv/orth,  and  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten,  they  have  much  reason  on  their  side. 
They  have  probably  been  introduced  to  these  poets 
in  the  wrong  way,  and  have  started  upon  the  wrong 
poems.  They  do  not  know  of  the  existence  of  the 
kernel,  and  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  finding  the 
shell  hard  and  tough.  The  child  from  eight  to 
twelve  or  fourteen  is  a  natural  iconclast.  Let  us  be 
frank  with  him,  and  give  him  leave  to  make  an  Aunt 
Sally  of  dull  or  pretentious  poems  whoever  may 
have  written  them. 

I  said  we  should  have  to  change  the  child's  poetic 
food  about  this  time.  What  shall  we  find  will  now 
best  satisfy  his  appetite?  His  mental  change  has 
been  towards  rationalism,  and  away  from  imagina- 
tive things.  We  shall  find,  therefore,  that  when  he 
desires  to  experience  the  pleasures  of  the  fancy  as 


128  POETRY  AND  THE  CHILD 

he  Still  will,  he  will  need  enormous  doses  of  those 
anodynes  with  which  in  poetry  we  lull  the  too-insis- 
tent logical  and  analytical  faculties. 

I,  at  about  twelve  or  thirteen  years,  and  a  boy 
whose  poetic  mentor  I  was,  had,  I  remember  for 
our  favourites,  '  The  Lady  of  Shalott,'  *  When  we 
Two  Parted  in  Silence  and  Tears,' '  Come  not  when 
I  am  dead,'  '  Break,  break,'  some  of  the  songs 
from  '  The  Faithful  Shepherdess,'  '  The  Isles  of 
Greece,'  '  Tears,  Idle  Tears,'  and  passages  from 
Milton  such  as  *  Whom  the  Almighty  Power.'  This 
choice  showed,  I  think,  that  what  we  wanted  were 
insistent  rhythms,  melodramatic  or  slightly  sugary 
sentiment,  and  the  greatest  possible  gorgeousness 
of  language. 

This  was  our  choice  in  matters  of  lyrics.  By  way 
of  long  poems  we  used  to  read  modernisations  of 
the  Icelandic  Sagas,  we  tolerated  '  Hiawatha,'  we 
liked  '  The  Siege  of  Lucknow,'  and  '  The  Revenge.' 
I  think  '  The  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade  '  slightly 
stuck  in  our  throats,  but  perhaps  we  were  rather 
sophisticated  children.  In  narrative,  next  to  our 
love  of  fighting  and  battles  came  our  love  of  any- 
thing that  made  our  flesh  creep.  I  remember 
learning  Browning's  '  In  a  Laboratory '  by  heart 
and  acting  it,  also  most  of  Rossetti's  '  Sister 
rielen  :  ,  q^^  ^j^^  waxen  knave  was  plump  today, 
Sister  Helen  ; 

How  like  dead  folk  he  has  dropped  away  !  * 

Nay  how,  of  the  dead  what  can  you  say, 
Little  Brother? 

(Oh,  Mother,  Mary  Mother, 

What  of  the  dead,  between  Hell  and  Heaven?)  ' 


POETRY    AND    THE    CHILD  1 29 

I  think  that  '  Christabel '  was  a  little  too  good  for 
us,  though  we  delighted  in  the  shorter  and  more 
rhythmically  insistent  '  Kubla  Khan.'  But  I  re- 
member how  the  age  of  reason  boggled  at  '  The 
Toothless  Bitch  '  who  bayed  so  punctually — like  the 
cook's  alarm  clock.  During  the  dry,  Voltairian  age 
of  reason  and  curiosity,  the  only  form  of  sustenance 
powerful  enough  to  reach  the  almost  buried  imagi- 
nation is,  in  fact,  generally  melodrama — that  is 
violent  emotion  set  to  insistent  rhythms. 

Ill 

After  this  most  children  go  through  a  meta- 
physical stage,  the  transition  is  marked  by  taking  to 
'  Macbeth  '  and  '  Samson  Agonistes.'  We  become 
priggish  and  read  '  Marcus  Aurelius.'  Then  is  the 
time  for  the  missionary  to  introduce  the  young 
person  to  Emily  Bronte's  *  The  Old  Stoic,'  to 
Wordsworth's  '  Happy  Warrior,'  to  '  Early  Intima- 
tions of  Immortality,'  *  Ode  to  Duty,'  and  perhaps 
to  '  Simon  Lee,  the  Old  Huntsman.' 

Some  boys  and  girls  like  Crabbe  at  this  age,  and 
about  now  I  should  introduce  a  little  Masefield  into 
the  diet,  for  instance,  '  The  River '  and  '  The 
Wanderer.'  With  some  young  people  and  the 
children  of  some  parents,  also  '  Daffodil  Fields  ' 
and  '  The  Everlasting  Mercy.'  Mr.  Gordon  Bot- 
tomley's  *  King  Lear's  Wife,'  and  '  Britain's 
Daughter '  would  please  this  age,  a  great  deal  of 
Dryden,  and  perhaps  Pope.  The  amount  of  didac- 
ticism that  I  could  then  lap  up  amazes  me. 


130  POETRY  AND  THE  CHILD 


IV 

Not  till  adolescence  is  complete  should  we  try  to 
get  the  girl  or  boy  to  enjoy  love  poetry.  There  will 
come  spring  when  you  will  find  your  pupil  spon- 
taneously deep  in  it. 

*  All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights, 
Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame, 
All  are  but  ministers  of  Love, 
And  feed  his  sacred  flame.' 

His  soul  will  tremble  to  the  enchantment  of 
'  Endymion.'  If  your  pupil  is  a  girl  don't  let  her 
at  this  stage  read  for  the  first  time  '  Hero  and 
Leander,'  ^  Venus  and  Adonis,'  Mr.  Aldous 
Huxley's  '  Leda,'  or  even  '  The  Maid's  Tragedy.' 
If  she  has  read  them  before,  and  is  familiar  with 
them,  it  will  be  all  right,  but  I  solemnly  believe 
and  aver  that  there  are  two  or  three  years  at  least 
in  a  girl's  life  when  these  poems  read  for  the  first 
time,  possess  a  real  power  to  wound  and  to  freeze 
the  opening  flower. 

Let  the  girl  be  as  sentimental  as  she  likes  about 
love.  If  a  girl  child  is  a  great  reader,  and  will  not 
be  warned,  and  has  a  library  at  her  command,  then 
look  ahead  and  see  to  it  that  she  reads  Don  Juan 
early.  Such  poems  act  on  many  natures  not  pro- 
vocatively, but  like  a  cold  wind.  Such  a  wind  may 
be  harmless  when  the  tree  is  in  bud,  and  whole- 
some when  the  fruit  is  set,  but  there  is  a  short  time 
when  the  blossom  may  be  hurt  by  it,  when  only  the 
^      soft  airs  of  Keats  and  Spencjer  should  blow. 


Chapter  XV 
LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY 

I  THINK  most  children  understand  what  they  are  to 
expect  from  poetry  almost  automatically,  and  if  we 
try  explanation  and  poetical  theory  with  them,  we 
shall  probably  only  darken  counsel  and  make  puzzl- 
ing what  was  before  perfectly  clear.  But  in  the 
case  of  grown-up  beginners,  or  even  beginners  in 
their  late  teens,  the  missionary  ought,  I  think,  to 
give  the  Reason  a  general  sort  of  idea  of  what  it  is 
that  we  expect  from  poetry.  As  we  get  older  our 
appreciative  faculties  decrease  and  our  analytical, 
critical  and  comparative  faculties  increase.  Thus 
(as  long  as  we  have  not  been  bored  by  long  dis- 
courses) of  all  the  things  we  have  learned  as  adults, 
we  enjoy  best  what  we  understand  best. 

Mr.  J.  F.  Roxburgh's  'Poetic  Procession'  is  a 
brilliant  little  pamphlet  intended  as  a  beginners' 
introduction  to  English  poetry,  and  made  up  from 
two  lectures  delivered  to  working  men.  The 
pamphlet  consists  of  about  fifty  pages  of  fairly  large 
printing,  and  not  only  does  Mr.  Roxburgh  have  to 
give  in  it  a  sort  of  lightning  impression  of  half  a 
dozen  individual  poets  and  as  many  epochs,  but 
from  the  method  he  has  employed  he  is  obliged  to 


132         LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY 

set  out  very  briefly  what  are  the  qualities  which  we 
look  for  in  poetry.  This  is  obviously  not  only  a 
thing  which  it  is  impossible  to  do  completely,  but 
which  it  is  difficult  to  do  even  partially  without  re- 
course to  talk  of  over  and  upper  meaning  and  the 
hypnotic  effects  of  recurring  rhythms  and  of 
rhymes,  and  of  the  metaphorical  basis  of  language. 
All  these  '  aids  to  reflection  '  were  denied  him  by 
the  nature  of  the  audience  to  which  he  was 
addressing  himself;  but  he  does  remarkably  well 
with  what  is  left  to  him,  saying  very  simply  that 
*  what  poetry  does  for  us  is  to  give  us  new  ideas, 
clearer  visions,  stronger  emotions,  and  also  to 
express  as  we  could  not  have  done  for  ourselves 
what  we  have  already  thought  and  seen  and  felt.' 
Incidentally  the  pamphlet  is  full  of  amusing 
epigrams  about  poets  and  periods  : — '  Milton  is,' 
he  says  '  the  poet  of  black  and  white/  Wordsworth 
appealed  to  the  heart  and  the  senses ;  Coleridge  to 
the  imagination.  '  With  Wordsworth  it  is  always 
Sunday  :   with  Byron  it  is  never  Sunday.' 

Had  I  an  audience  of  adults  to  convince — an 
audience  not  stupid,  but  bred,  say,  as  commercial 
travellers  or  analytical  chemists — I  should  be 
very  much  inclined  to  make  an  experiment.  I 
should  begin  by  trying  to  express  partly  in  words 
of  one  syllable,  partly  in  parable,  the  theories  set 
out  in  this  book  about  poetry  as  a  means  of  com- 
munication between  two  subconsciousnesses,  stress- 
ing especially  the  notion  that  by  means  of  art  you 
can  express  just  those  things  that  you  cannot  put 
into  so  many  words,  and  in  this  connection  I  should 


LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY         1 33 

relate  an  anecdote — quoted  as  a  matter  of  fact  by 
Mr.  Roxburgh  in  a  different  connection  : — '  When 
Byron  was  at  Trinity,  Cambridge,  it  is  said  that  he 
bought  a  large  black  bear,  dressed  it  in  cap  and 
gown,  and  introduced  it  to  the  Dean/  Imagine  the 
miserable  crudeness  of  an  attempt  to  express  this 
piece  of  satire  by  direct  statement !  Then  I  should 
give  some  examples  of  satiric  and  comic  poetry  and 
of  epigrams,  pointing  out  the  conciseness  given  by 
the  poetic  form,  and  the  way  in  which  a  poet  is  able 
to  direct  the  reader's  attention  to  particular  points 
by  means  of  the  devices  of  emphasis  which  he  is  able 
to  wield  (such  as  rhyming  on  a  word  the  reader  is  to 
notice,  using  the  accented  part  of  the  line,  and  so 
forth).  Presently,  after  my  audience  were  soothed 
in  their  reasons  by  so  much  that  sounded  '  sensible  ' 
I  should  go  on  to  speak  of  true  poetry,  and  here  I 
should  be  very  much  inclined  not  so  much  as  to 
mention  the  '  old  masters  '  at  all — Keats,  Milton, 
Shelley,  Shakespeare,  and  the  rest.  It  is  possible 
even  probable  that  the  child's  mind  is  really  most 
familiar  with  what  is  most  remote,  but  I  should  first 
try  to  win  adults  to  an  appreciation  of  modern 
poetry,  and  I  should  consider  the  usual  '  standard 
poets '  purely  as  an  advanced  course.  I  should 
nurse  my  hearers  up  on  Brooke,  Shanks,  Masefield, 
Robert  Nicholls,  Siegfried  Sassoon,  the  Sitwells, 
and  so  on.  All  this  modern  work  is  near  to  them, 
for,  as  Mr.  Roxburgh  remarks,  '  among  other  things 
the  modern  movement  is  a  movement  which  is 
bringing  poetry  considerably  closer  to  everyday 
life.'     Now  an  adult  beginner  would  probably  start 


134         LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY 

in  what  we  might  call  a  utilitarian  frame  of  mind  : 
the  attitude  that  asks  *  What  will  poetry  do  for  me  ?  * 
and  therefore  this  nearness  to  everyday  life  might 
be  a  very  valuable  quality  in  our  '  didactic 
material.' 

Take  the  case  of  love  poetry,  for  .instance.  I 
believe  it  is  a  comparatively  mature  taste  that  wants 
to  read  of  the  loves  of  Aeneas,  of  the  face  that 
launched  a  thousand  ships,  of  Cleopatra  and  her 
worm,  and  a  still  maturer  that  can  bear  the  abstrac- 
tion of  Chloe,  Daphnis  and  Strephon. 

I  w^ould  far  sooner  confront  my  commercial 
travellers  and  my  '  tired  business  men  '  with  Mr. 
D.  H.  Lawrence's  *  If  I  never  see  her  again  '  or 
Miss  Mew's  '  Madeleine  in  Church,'  or  some  love 
poem  of  Rupert  Brooke's.  One  of  the  easiest 
methods  of  showing  what  poetry  is  and  what  it  does, 
4S  to  contrast  it  with  prose,  and  for  this  purpose  it 
is  very  much  easier  to  use  Miss  Sitwell's  poem  about 
the  tram,  than  a  passage,  say,  from  Tennyson's 
'  Princess.' 

I  should  regard  some  of  Mr.  Masefield's  poems 
as  very  strong  cards.     Take,  for  example,  some  of 
the  passages  in  *  Right  Royal,'  describing  the  racing 
crowd  :   The  groom  with  the  face  like  yellow  parch- 
ment, the  bookies,  the  wagonette  from  '  The  Old 
Pier  Head,'  or  this  charming  neat  piece  of  work  : — 
*  The  costermongers  as  smart  as  sparrows 
Brought  their  wives  in  their  donkey  barrows. 
The  clean-legged  donkeys,  clever  and  cunning, 
Their  ears  cocked  forward,  their  neat  feet  running, 
Their  carts  and  harness  flapping  with  flags, 
Were  bright  as  heralds  and  proud  as  stags. 


LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY         1 35 

And  there  in  pride  in  the  flapping  banners 

Were  the  costers'  selves  in  blue  bandanas, 

And  the  costers'  wives  in  feathers  curling, 

And  their  sons,  with  their  sweet  mouth-organs  skirling.' 

From  this  I  should  be  able  to  bring  them  on  insen- 
sibly, a  feeling  of  firm  ground  still  under  their  feet, 
to  more  imaginative  passages  in  '  Dauber '  and 
perhaps  even  to  the  climax  of  *  The  Everlasting 
Mercy.'  For  the  purpose  of  general  leading  on, 
war  poems  are  very  useful,  the  violence  of  Mr. 
Sassoon's  war  poems  not  less  than  Mr.  Masefield's 
beautiful  elergy,  '  August  19 14.'  Perhaps  here  one 
might  begin  with  William  Wilfred  Gibson's  dying 
soldier  who  goes  on  planning  his  allotment : — 

*  Two  rows  of  cabbages, 
Two  of  curly-greens, 
Two  rows  of  early  peas. 
Two  of  kidney  beans.' 

or  perhaps  the  following,  from  '  Neighbours  ' : — 

*  Stripped  mother-naked  except  for  a  gold  ring. 
Where  all  day  long  the  gaping  doctors  sit 
Decreeing  life  or  death,  he  proudly  passed 
In  his  young  manhood ;  and  they  found  him  fit. 

Of  all  that  lustiness  of  flesh  and  blood 
The  crash  of  death  has  not  left  anything, 
But  tumbled  somewhere  in  the  Flanders'  mire 
Unbroken  lies  the  golden  wedding-ring.* 

Then  one  might  go  on  with  one  of  Mr.  Sassoon's 
rather  horrific  verses,  and  round  all  off  with  '  Every- 
one Singing  '  or  a  verse  or  two  from  '  August  19 14.* 
Such  examples,  so  treated,  would  I  honestly  believe 


136         LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY 

prove  the  conversion  of  many,  for  we  all  know 
some  aspect  of  the  emotional  significance  of  the 
war.  We  all  know  that  this  emotion  is  no  hoax  of 
the  poets,  but  something  which  we  ourselves 
know — something  which,  moreover,  could  not 
be  expressed  in  a  telegram.  So  .that  in  the 
instance  of  war  poetry  our  task  is  made  easier  by 
the  fact  that  wejiave  only  got  to  sort  the  good  from 
the  bad.  We  shall  here  find  our  main  argument, 
*  Say  it  in  verse,'  accepted,  and  we  have  left  remain- 
ing only  the  less  nebulous  and  therefore  easier  task 
of  leading  our  scholars  on  to  a  preference  for  good 
verse. 

It  is  at  this  stage  that  I  should  introduce  some  of 
my  examples  of  how  not  to  do  it,  for  this  is  a 
weapon  in  whose  efficiency  I  have  great  faith. 
Heaven  knows,  there  is  no  lack  of  bad  war  poetry ! 
We  shall  easily  find  bellicose  verse  about  the  Hun 
being  at  the  gate  and  our  sword  being  unsheathed 
(here  the  rhymes  will  be  gate,  fate,  hate).  We 
could  quote  sentimental  verses  on  the  non-return  of 
Daddy  (mild,  child,  fay,  play);  verses  about 
ministering  angels  in  hospitals,  about  '  cheery ' 
wounded  (fag  will  rhyme  with  flag).  There  will  be 
verses  to  remind  us  of  Campbell's  '  Wounded 
Hussar.'  Does  the  reader  recollect  this }  It  is  one 
of  the  best  pieces  in  my  private  '  Tin  Treasury '  : 

*  Alone  to  the  bank  of  the  dark-rolling-  Danube 
Fair  Adelaide  hied  when  the  battle  was  o*er  : — 
**  Oh,   whither,"   she  cried,   ''  hast  thou  wandered,   my 

lover  ? 
Or  here  dost  thou  welter  and  bleed  on  the  shore? 


LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY         1 37 

What  voice  did  I  hear?  'Twas  my  Henry  that  sighed?*' 
All  mournful  she  hastened,  nor  wandered  she  far, 
When  bleeding,  and  low,  on  the  heath  she  descried, 
By  the  light  of  the  moon  her  poor  wounded  Hussar !  ' 

With  this  '  explosion  of  all  the  upholsterers '  I 
should  contrast  another  '  humanitarian  '  war  poem  : 

*  Ah,  were  I  King  of  Spain, 
Or  better.  Pope  of  Rome, 
Vd  have  no  fighting  men  abroad, 
No  weeping  maids  at  home. ' 

I  am  sure  that  the  old-fashioned  advertisers  were 
right.  There  is  nothing  so  effective  as  the  two  pic- 
tures of  the  man  '  Before  taking  Nurse  Trumping- 
ton's  word-famed  drops,  and  after.'  Particularly 
is  the  method  useful  in  the  arts.  For  in  trying  to 
pass  on  our  own  pleasure,  we  must  never  forget  the 
limitations  of  criticism,  and  chiefly  that  prime 
limitation  which  I  have  tried  to  prove — the  fact  that 
the  whole  point  of  the  content  of  the  arts  is  that  you 
cannot  express  it  in  a  direct  statement.  That  is 
why,  especially  to  a  non-adept  audience,  example  is 
finally  worth  more  than  precept.  Though  I  believe 
that,  adult  man  being  a  rational  creature,  precept 
also  has  its  place  because  it  meets  the  interruptions 
and  objections  of  the  ratiocinating  part  of  his 
nature.  Again,  if  you  teach  largely  by  giving 
examples,  the  reader  has  not  got  to  take  all  the 
points  on  your  '  say  so.'  The  almost  infinite  bad- 
ness of  '  fair  Adelaide  '  sticks  out  quite  obviously. 
But  \ve  must  be  ambitious  and  take  popular 
fayourites  in  this  way.  We  may  find  it  rather  more 
difficult  to  explain  what  is  wrong  with  some  of  Ella 


138         LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY 

Wheeler  Wilcox's  poems.  They  have  a  curious  un- 
nerving vigour.  Perhaps  the  best  way  of  exposing 
her  faults  is  to  contrast  some  poem  of  hers  with  a 
good  poem,  if  possible  upon  the  same  subject,  or, 
her  subjects  being  most  strangely  chosen,  if  the 
missionary's  ingenuity  does  not  run  to  this,  then  at 
any  rate  with  a  poem  which  strives  to  attain  the 
same  emotional  effect. 


II. 

There  is  a  question  which  is  sometimes  asked  by 
those  who  would  like  to  like  poetry,  and  that  is 
whether  it  is  a  good  thing  to  learn  by  heart  .^  I 
think  most  emphatically  that  it  is,  but  the  learner 
mu^t  be  very  careful  in  the  choice  of  his  piece.  It 
must  be  something  that  he  really  likes,  that  has 
really  struck  his  imagination;  he  must  feel  that 
he  would  like  to  live  with  it,  must  choose  it  as  if  he 
were  choosing  a  wife. 

Another  conundrum.  We  may  be  asked  to  define 
poetry,  to  draw  the  line  between  poetry  and  prose. 
This  is,  of  course,  quite  impossible,  but  the  question 
at  least  gives  us  a  text  for  impressing  on  our 
readers  that  it  is  the  spirit,  the  intention,  that  makes 
poetry,  not  the  letter,  and  that  a  metrical  arrange- 
ment of  words  is  only  the  method  by  which  poetry 
usually  seeks  to  attain  certain  ends.  But  verse  is 
no  more  necessarily  poetry  than  a  non-metrical 
arrangement  is  necessarily  prose. 


LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY         1 39 

*  Thirty  days  hath  September, 
April,  June,  and  November, 
All  the  rest  have  thirty-one 
Excepting  February  alone. 

Which  has  but  twenty-eig-ht  days  clear 
And  twenty-nine  in  each  Leap  Year.* 

Vers  libre,  polyphonic  prose  and  prose  proper,, 
are  all  forms  which  shade  into  one  another.  There 
is  no  question  of  merit — Abraham  Lincoln's 
Gettysburg  speech  and  Second  Inaugural  are 
both  true  prose;  'Dream  Fugues,'  'Urn  Burial,' 
'  Can  Grande's  Castle '  we  might  take  as 
representing  polyphonic  prose.  Some  of  Mr. 
Richard  Aldington's  Free  Verse  or  Mr.  Squire's 
poem  about  the  football  match  are  both  in  the  next 
stage,  and  though  here  and  there  using  a  prose 
rythm,  have  begun  to  be  printed  like  verse.  And 
so  on,  and  so  on,  until  we  get  by  minute  stages  to 
such  verse  as  : 

*  There  be  none  of  Beauty* s  daughters 
With  a  magic  like  to  thee. 

And  like  music  on  the  waters 
Is  thy  sweet  voice  to  me  :  ' 

We  might  here  indeed  take  an  analogy  from  the 
kitchen.  The  nature  of  the  poem,  as  of  the  jelly 
or  the  blanc-mange,  remains  unchanged  whether  it 
is  put  into  a  mould  representing  a  hedgehog,  or 
turned  out  of  a  pudding  basin,  or  broken  up  into 
glasses.  Some  people  complain  that  if,  in  shape,  it 
is  to  represent  a  bird  or  an  elephant,  the  cook  is 
likely  to  make  it  too  stiff.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
non-expert  guest,  who  does  not  know  what  excellent 


140         LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY 

things  have  gone  into  the  mixture,  may  be  dis- 
tressed  by  having  it  served  to  him  in  a  form  to 
which  he  is  not  accustomed. 

Last  of  all,  I  should  try  and  warn  my  audience 
against  what  I  believe  to  be  a  pernicious  fallacy, 
and  that  is  that  the  object  of  cultivating  the  taste  is 
to  become  more  austere.  Austerity  is  at  best  a 
negative  virtue.  Matthew  Arnold  says  :  '  We  must 
accustom  ourselves  to  a  high  standard  and  to  a 
strict  judgment,  and  thus  learn  to  recognise  the  best 
in  poetry.'  Mr.  Sturge  Moore  agrees  with  him. 
'  We  must  maintain,'  he  says,  '  a  determination  to 
become  only  intimate  with  verse  that  stands  the  test 
of  our  most  active  moods,  instead  of  letting  the 
luckless  day,  with  its  relaxed  temper,  console  itself 
with  something  that  we  have  perceived  to  be  second- 
rate.  For  in  proportion  as  we  are  loyal  to  our  taste, 
it  will  become  more  difficult  to  please,  until  at  last 
a  really  sound  judgment  is  acquired.'  He  goes  on 
still  further  to  identify  good  taste  with  being  hard 
to  please  and  its  cultivation  as  an  eradication  of  bad 
habits  of  mind.  I  believe  that  this  is  all  nonsense. 
Try  and  find  out  what  is  liked  by  people  whose 
judgment  you  trust,  if  at  first  you  don't  like  it  your- 
self;  try  to  find  out  what  they  see  in  the  particular 
author  or  passage,  but  never  set  out  to  try  and  dis- 
like even  fustian.  I  believe  there  is  something 
automatically  '  refining  '  in  the  best  examples  of  art, 
and  that  if  we  can  care  for  two  or  three  really  good 
poems  for  themselves  and  not  for  any  adventitious 
reason,  that  will  automatically  make  us  dissatisfied 
with  '  fake  poetry.'     And  after  all,  what  if  we  were 


LEARNING  TO  READ  POETRY         I4I 

to  get  pleasure  from  the  second-rate?  True  the 
public  has  a  duty  to  the  poets  who  write  for  it,  and 
we  ought  to  try  to  distinguish  between  the  good  and 
the  bad;  but  admiration  is  to  some  extent  a  For- 
tunatus'  purse,  and  in  admiring  something  which 
is  perhaps  not  strictly  worthy  of  admiration,  we  are 
not  necessarily  robbing  some  other  poet  of  his  right- 
ful heritage.  In  this  matter  of  praise  and  apprecia- 
tion it  is  as  true  as  it  is  in  the  world  of  law,  that  it  is 
better  to  let  off  two  or  three  guilty  prisoners,  than 
to  condemn  one  innocent  one.  It  is  better  to  over- 
praise a  few  earnest  but  mediocre  souls  than  to 
underpraise  one  Keats. 


Chapter  XVI 

LEARNING  TO  WRITE  POETRY 

In  these  days  of  poetic  liberty  we  desire  an  oblique 
glimpse    of    something   exquisite    rather   than   the 
flawless  statement  of  the  commonplace.     But  even 
in  this  happy  epoch  there  remains  the  yard-stick. 
Mr.  Munro  and  Mr.  Squire,  and  in  a  less  degree 
Mr.  Middleton  Murry,  are  exceedingly  sure  of  the 
complete  accuracy  and  efficacy  of  their  measures. 
They  are  also  quite  sure  that  below  a  certain  rather 
high  standard  of  proficiency  it  is  better  not  to  write, 
and  it  is  sinful  to  publish.     Possibly  they  are  right. 
The  standard  of  technical  ability,  both  in  prose  and 
verse,   is   low   in    England — much   lower   than   in 
France,  for  instance.     Our  young  poets — those  who 
are  most  promising — are  often  the  better  for  a  good 
'  head-masterish '  talking  to.     Many  of  them  need  a 
fright  which  will  lead  them  in  future  to  take  greater 
pains  with  their  verses  before  they  ask  the  durability 
of  printers'  ink  for  them.     But  let  us  remember  the 
parable  of  the  Wheat  and  the  Tares.     The  house- 
holder was  so  anxious  that  the  good  seed  should  not 
be  rooted  up  and  spoilt  that  he  was  very  lenient  with 
the  weeds.     Such,  it  seems  to  me,  should  be  the  atti- 
tude of  the  critic.     The  stream  of  bad  verse  which 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  POETRY         1 43 

pours  Weekly  from  a  thousand  pens  is,  after  all, 
a  negative  evil.  Keats  said  the  last  word  about 
a  beautiful  thing.  One  beautiful  poem  is  a  positive 
good — a  palpable  new  jewel  for  the  public  treasury. 
It  more  than  cancels  out  the  ninety  and  nine. 

Poets  are  as  various  as  their  works,  and  there  is 
probably  no  general  piece  of  advice  as  to  the 
writing  of  verse  that  can  be  given  even  to  young 
poets.  Perhaps  a  few  concrete  examples  of  do's 
and  dont's  illustrated  by  poems  sent  in  in  the 
ordinary  way  to  The  Spectator  may  be  of  use  to  the 
beginner — to  whom  alone  this  chapter  is  addressed. 

Two  or  three  poets  have  been  kind  enough  to 
allow  me  to  give,  as  samples  of  several  varying 
grades  in  the  art  of  poetic  proficiency,  verses  which 
they  have  submitted  to  The  Spectator  for  publica- 
tion.    The  first  is  a  slight  lyric,  '  Moon  ' : 

*  Long-  years  ago  the  moon, 
When  earth  was  flame, 
Left  his  embrace  and  came 
Out  to  the  arms  of  space, 
Hiding  for  shame  her  face. 

Earth,  when  she  fled,  grew  cold, 
Mourned  her  with  tears  in  vain, 

But  still  as  the  seasons  pass, 
Love  draws  the  twain  : 

Earth  strives  ag'ain  to  hold 

Moon,  till  she  hides  her  face, 
Fearing  love's  pain. ' 

The  first  verse  is  agreeable  and  the  notion  attrac- 
tive, but  in  the  second  verse  we  feel  that  the  ex- 
pression of  the  thought  is  manufactured.  Now  the 
first   verse    could    not    stand    alone,    so    the    poet 


144  LEARNING    TO    WRITE    POETRY 

completed  his  work  as  best  he  could.  All  poets 
inevitably  fill  up  faults  or  cracks  with  inferior 
material  to  some  extent.  But  we  have  to  consider 
the  proportion  of  primary  and  secondary  matter 
and  the  workmanship  of  the  pedestrian  parts.  In 
'  Moon '  there  are  seven  clay  lines  to  five  golden, 
and  the  f aultiness  of  the  last  two  lines  is  obvious. 

A  poem  on  autumn  by  the  same  author  has  very 
good  points,  despite  a  line  which  necessitates  '  sad- 
denmg'  But  it  has  good  lines  in  it — for  example, 
despite  its  more  than  doubtful  ornithology  :  — 

*  All  birds  are  silent,  crouching  in  their  nests, 
Rain-soaked  and  tossed  unending*  by  the  wind.' 

An  effect  of  dripping  melancholy  is  well  achieved 
and  maintained. 

There  is  another  poem  on  autumn  in  the  collec- 
tion. The  first  fault  I  have  to  find  with  this  is  that 
it  consists  of  seven  verses,  while  the  idea  of  the 
thing  could  have  been  expressed  in  about  four.  In 
the  second  verse  we  find  '  'tis  autumn.'  Then  in 
verse  three  : — 

*  The  leaves  fall  softly,  red  and  brown. 
And  now  and  then  a  chestnut  ripe 
Few  of  God's  choir  seem  now  to  pipe. 
The  yearly  sands  are  running  down. 
And  all  is  beautiful  ..." 

'  Few  of  God's  choir  seem  now  to  pipe  '  is  obviously 
bad.  It  is  quite  out  of  keeping  with  a  poem  which 
set  out  to  be  a  visualization — a  fairly  realistic  pic- 
ture. To  call  birds  '  God's  choir '  belongs  to  a 
different  imaginative  '  layer  ' ;  and  though  it  might 
conceivably  be  introduced  effectively  where  a  com- 


LEARNING    TO    WRITE    POETRY  1 45 

pletely  fresh  turn  was  to  be  given  to  a  poem,  it  cer- 
tainly must  not  be  vaguely  set  in  like  that.  '  The 
yearly  sands  are  running  down  '  '  And  all  is  beauti- 
ful '  are  two  disconnected  ideas  very  unhappily 
married.  Later  on  ^the  poet  asks,  What  is  the 
meaning  of  all  this  gentle  beauty.^ 

*  .   .   .   Need  we  ask? 
To  answer  is  an  easy  task. 
Earth  hears  Death's  footstep  on  the  stair.' 

We  thought  we  were  out  of  doors — what  stair  .'^  As 
for  verse  seven,  it  is  too  weak  to  endure  the  torture 
of  dissection.  I  pass  on  to  a  more  robust  victim. 
Here  is  another  long  poem,  '  Legerdemain.'  Its 
author  is  about  eighteen  : — 

*  The  Old  Man  of  Dreams  bore  me,  pickaback, 
Clasping  his  shoulders  bent  with  magic  sack.* 

The  Old  Man  takes  the  narrator  in  this  metre  to 
the  end  of  the  world  where  stars  are  made.  There 
sits  Time,  mighty,  on  a  throne  of  fire  :  the  Hours 
frolic  round  him.     The  Hours  sing  : — 

*  Men  shall  always  woo  us 
(We  care  not  for  their  love  or  hate). 
They  think  that  they  may  bind  us 
(We  fashion  their  sorry  fate)  ...  * 

The  jolt  is  really  atrocious,  for  the  object  of  intro- 
ducing short  line  lyrics  into  the  middle  of  a  narra- 
tive poem  is  surely  to  produce  a  musical  effect;  to 
edge,  as  it  were,  further  away  from  the  prose- 
characteristics  that  the  narrative  necessitated. 
Limping  lines  are  here,  therefore,  unforgiveable, 


146  LEARNING    TO    WRITE    POETRY 

and  in  this  lyric,  which  consists  altogether  of  eight 
lines,  there  are  no  fewer  than  four  lame  ones.  But 
to  continue.  An  Hour  goes  weeping  to  Time,  say- 
ing she  is  lost :  she  has  not  performed  her  appointed 
watch  on  earth  and  has  missed  her  turn.  Then 
the  poet  commits  the  hideous  mistake  of  making 
Time  rise  from  his  throne,  whereas  before,  his  de- 
scription had  given  us  quite  a  pleasing,  Blakeian 
idea  of  Time  as  a  vast  elemental  creature  whose 
top  reached  to  the  heavens  and  his  feet  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth.  But  when  he  stands  to  address  the 
meeting  he  dwindles.  There  follows  an  obscure 
verse  in  which  the  poet,  prompted  by  the  Old  Man 
of  Dreams,  consents  to  take  the  Hour  for  his  bride, 
and  we  end  with  the  poet  somewhat  entangled  in  his 
metaphor.  It  is  impossible  to  make  sure  whether 
the  Hour  does  or  does  not  change  from  a  personifi- 
cation to  a  subdivision  of  Time  during  which  the 
poet  may  consider  the  charms  of  an  earthly  beloved. 
I  apologize  to  the  authors  of  these  poems  for 
dissecting  their  mistakes  and  disregarding  their 
virtues. 

Young  poets  very  often  write  to  me  for  advice. 
They  send  me  their  entire  life's  work,  or  their  rela- 
tions do,  and  ask  me  '  to  class  these  60  poems  in 
order  of  merit.  A,  B  or  C  I  don't  know  that  my 
advice  is  ever  any  good.  As  a  rule  I  refer  them  to 
some  good  books  of  criticism — very  often  Mrs. 
Wilkinson's  '  New  Voices  '  and  Mr.  Sturge  Moore's 
'  Some  Soldier  Poets,'  and,  if  I  think  their  work  is 
inclined  to  be  '  soppy,'  to  Mr.  Harold  Munro's 
'  Some  Contemporary  Poets,  1920.'     To  the  more 


LEARNING    TO    WRITE    POETRY  1 47 

intelligent  and  promising  I  should  now  also,  of 
course,  always  recommend  Mr.  Graves'  new  book 
'  On  English  Poetry.' 

I  have  been  looking  through  the  rather  dreary 
records  of  the  advice  that  I  have  given.  A  good 
m.any  people  I  seem  to  have  accused  of  sitting 
down  to  write  poetry,  rather  than  trying  to  express 
any  very  vivid  thought  or  emotion,  the  consequence 
being  the  production  of  a  mild  type  of  work  without 
any  very  active  faults,  but  which  does  not  seem  par- 
ticularly worth  writing.  A  poet  who  got  a  certain 
amount  of  emotion  into  his  verse  was  not  careful 
of  his  words,  and  at  regular  intervals  introduced  a 
cliche  which  acted  as  a  complete  non-conductor  to 
the  reader's  emotion.  From  this  poem  I  collected 
'  winging  a  thought,'  '  a-thrill,'  '  'tis,'  '  scarce,'  '  the 
great  White  Ray,'  '  things  that  matter.'  Another 
poet  put  '  knew  '  and  '  too  '  in  such  a  position  in  a 
vers  libre  poem  that  they  sounded  as  if  they  were 
meant  to  rhyme.  Another  seems  to  have  sent  a 
villanelle.  But  I  object  that  I  don't  know  what  the 
'  starry  stream  '  is,  or  believe  in  '  a  song  made  from 
a  sigh.'  Another  poet  calls  his  verse,  '  The  Mirror 
of  the  Spirit '  and  uses  '  thee  '  and  '  thou  '  through- 
out— '  beauteous  '  and  '  majestic  quiver  '  appear  to 
have  been  expressions  that  I  found  fault  with  say- 
ing '  I  think  that  perhaps  you  felt  that  your 
thoughts  and  form  were  becoming  a  little  prosaic 
and  hoped  to  increase  the  poetic  effect  by  using  a 
diction  which  we  usually  associate  with  poetry.  I 
do  not  think  this  device  is  ever  a  success.'  (The 
readers  of  Mrs.  Wilkinson's  New  Voices    will  re- 


148  LEARNING    TO    WRITE    POETRY 

member   her    remarks    about   what    she    calls   the 
'  Hath-doth  '  school.) 

— ''  You  ask  for  criticism  of  your  poems.  I  think 
perhaps  the  best  criticism  is  contained  in  your  own 
title  for  them — you  call  them  *  Bird  Poems.'  That 
is  to  say  that  you  do  not  seem  even  to  be  ambitious 
of  being  more  than  a  writer  of  minor  verse.  The 
first  one,  '  The  Blackcap/  is  pretty,  but  I  don't  like 
— in  the  second  and  third  lines  of  the  first  verse — 
'  clap  '  and  '  blackcap  '  being  so  near  together.  It 
is  all  right  visually,  but  try  and  say  it  aloud  and  you 
will  notice  the  awkwardness —  " 

A  lady  I  accuse  of  not  being  careful  about  words 
and  employing  the  phrase  *  mystic  hush.' 

Another  uses  '  throb  '  as  a  transitive  verb. 

Another  poet  is  not  careful  enough  of  sense  in 
his  sonnet,  in  that  he  brackets  '  'dust  and  mold.' 
'  Mold  is  damp  and  clinging  and  dust  flies  about.' 
When  the  "  dust-and-mold  "  further  proceeds  to 
'*  engulf  in  its  strife,"  the  reader  feels  you  have 
got  tangled  up  in  your  meaning,  or  are  writing  on 
a  purely  verbal  plane.  I  do  not  fancy  the  three 
last  lines  really  mean  anything.  The  reader  sees 
what  you  mean,  but  you  have  not  expressed  it.  I 
should  imagine  that  you  read  rather  too  much 
Wordsworth  and  even  perhaps  Young's  ''  Night 
Thoughts  "  or  Thompson's  '*  Seasons."  ' 

Another  sonneteer  apparently  rhymed  *  flock ' 
and  *  awoke,'  he  then  proceeded  to  *feel  a  rumbling' 
and  to  '  hear  a  struggle.'  Afterwards  somebody — 
the  dawn,  I  think, — was  *  clothed  in  beams  of  ruddy 


LEARNING    TO    WRITE    POETRY  1 49 

light/  but  continued  to  throw  '  a  pale  vagueness/ 
'  Haply  '  also  occurred. 

I  have  quantities  of  poems  by  children  sent  me. 
Fourteen  seems  a  favourite  age  at  which  to  aspire 
to  publication.  The  chief  fault  of  these  poems  is 
that  they  are  either  very  stilted  and  read  like  verse 
essays  by  Dr.  Johnson — the  result  of  having  been 
obliged  to  take  a  country  walk, — or  else  they  are 
about  elves  and  birds  and  are  conveyed  in  a  horribly 
tinkling  metre.  These  are  apt  to  have  such  titles 
as  '  The  Song  of  the  Hill-top  Sprite.' 

I  never  feel  a  great  conviction  that  my  letters  of 
advice  are  much  good — little  squalid  scraps  of  rule- 
of-thumb  empiricism,  that  is  what  they  amount  to. 
However,  they  apparently  give  pleasure  and  en- 
couragement. The  only  real  advice  that  one  can 
give  to  a  poet  is  that  he  must  try  to  read  the  right 
stuff  and  to  try  and  acquire  the  right  attitude  of 
mind  towards  his  work.  Especially  I  should  advise 
young  poets  not  to  despise  theory,  or  to  go  off  with 
the  idea  that  rules  will  stop  the  fine  flow  of  inspira- 
tion. To  argue  like  this  shows  no  psychological 
knowledge  and  very  little  commonsense,  for  the 
whole  of  human  practice  in  acquiring  skill,  es- 
pecially, of  course,  manual  skill,  is  based  on  the  fact 
that  what  you  do  consciously  to-day,  to-morrow  and 
the  next  day,  you  will  do  in  a  week's  time  automati- 
cally. To  practise  your  music,  or  service  at  tennis, 
or  off-drive  at  cricket  is  really  the  process  of  teach- 
ing tricks  to  your  subconsciousness.  Just  so  you 
can  get  into  the  habit  of  writing  skilfully.  If  you 
at  first  consciously  seek  certain  merits  and  try  to 


150  LEARNING    TO    WRITE    POETRY 

avoid  certain  faults,  you  will  find  yourself  working 
automatically  on  a  much  higher  level  of  skill, — 
you  will  find  that  you  will  have  educated  the  aff- 
latus. I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  young  poet 
must  write  quantities  of  practice  poems,  I  should 
think  in  most  cases  this  would  be  as  great  as  mistake 
as  for  an  athlete  to  train  by  rushing  as  hard  as 
possible  every  day  up  a  very  steep  hill  carrying  a 
heavy  load,  both  processes  would  be  likely  to  strain 
the  heart — both  are  in  fact  too  arduous  and  dis- 
agreeable. But  every  poet,  indeed  every  writer, 
goes  about  turning  phrases  to  himself,  just  as  every 
painter  goes  about  making  compositions  out  of 
what  he  sees.  Here  is  the  medium  in  which  to 
practise. 

Another  thing  in  which  the  poet  can  help  himself 
is  in  seeing  to  it  that  he  has  good  conditions  for  his 
work.  If  possible  he  ought  to  be  in  constant  con- 
tact with  other  poets,  or  at  any  rate  with  other 
artists  of  some  sort.  If  this  is  really  impossible  (it 
seldom  is),  at  least  let  him  read  a  great  deal,  to 
counteract  the  suggestion  which  is  then  sure  to  be 
to  some  extent  present  in  his  environment,  that  *  all 
this  is  great  nonsense.' 

But  perhaps  the  most  difficult  problem  of  all  that 
many  young  poets  have  to  face  is  the  financial  one. 
I  think  for  most  imaginative  writers,  especially 
when  they  are  young,  it  is  extremely  bad  absolutely 
to  be  obliged  to  write  in  order  to  pay  for  meat, 
bread  and  washing.  Such  a  goad  produces  a  sort  of 
f everishness  and  self-consciousness  that  makes  work 
a  torture.     For  most  writers  it  is  far  better  to  have 


LEARNING    TO    WRITE    POETRY  I5I 

a  mechanical  profession,  even  if  such  a  profession 
gives  him  disagreeably  little  time  for  his  real  work. 
The  more  mechanical  that  profession  is  the  better; 
— I  mean  that  to  be  a  schoolmaster  or  to  keep  a 
shop  does  not  at  all  meet  the  case.  It  would  be 
far  better  to  be  a  tram-conductor.  Agricultural 
labour,  navvying  and  boiler-rivetting,  of  course, 
on  the  other  hand,  would  be  no  good.  A  poet  is 
not  likely  to  do  good  work  whose  mind  is  drugged 
by  the  deadly  physical  fatigue  which  overcomes  the 
amateur  at  such  tasks. 

And  one  more  tip.  Though  a  young  writer  must 
read  a  great  deal,  let  him  beware  of  poetic  authors 
who  have  the  sort  of  effect  that  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
has  upon  prose  writers.  Sir  Thomas  Browne's 
style  is  more  catching  than  the  plague;  it  is  an 
extremely  beautiful  style,  but  it  is  almost  always 
highly  unsuitable  for  the  business  that  the  modern 
writer  has  in  mind. 

But  I  don't  think  that  the  young  poet  ought  ever 
to  be  afraid  of  reading  too  much  in  general  lest  he 
should  find  that  all  the  good  songs  have  been  sung. 
We  live  in  the  early  time  of  a  new  phase  and,  unless 
the  poet  knows  himself  to  be  incurably  imitative,  it 
does  not  matter  to  him  very  much  how  often  a 
thing  has  been  said  as  long  as  it  has  not  been  said 
within  the  last  fifteen  years.  For,  if  he  has  a 
modern  mind,  he  will  find  that  he  approaches  his 
subject  so  completely  from  a  new  angle  that  it  will 
not  matter  in  the  least  if  he  has  tried  to  express  the 
same  things  as  some  older  poet.  This  is,  of  course, 
not  only  true  of  this  age.     It  is  obvious  that  it  would 


152  LEARNING    TO    WRITE    POETRY 

not  matter  at  all  to  Dryden  that  he  and  Gower  had 
both  written  about  Cressida;  it  would  not  have 
mattered  to  Dr.  Johnson  if  Massinger  had  treated 
the  subject  of  '  Irene,'  it  would  only  have  been  an 
obstacle  to  his  writing  his  tragedy  if  Pope  had 
done  so. 

'  But/  says  the  poet,  '  it  is  the  moderns  I  fear.  I 
don't  want  to  cramp  myself  by  knowing  how  Robert 
NichoUs  has  treated  a  theme  of  which  I  propose  to 
write.'  My  advice  to  him  is,  however,  to  be  ready 
to  know  the  worst.  If  he  has  any  contradictious- 
ness  in  his  nature  the  fact  that  Robert  NichoUs  has 
treated  it  in  one  way,  will  immediately  suggest  to 
him  an  alternate  method. 

Besides  it  is  essential  that  he  should  read  a  great 
deal  of  modern  poetry.  Only,  I  think,  by  reading 
verse  of  their  own  epoch  can  writers  or  readers  learn 
anything  about  the  essence  of  poetry.  As  it  is 
exemplified  in  the  contemporary  verse  of  any  age, 
poetry  shows  stripped  of  a  great  deal  of  the  adven- 
titious glamour  which  surrounds  the  products  of  a 
different  epoch.  We  are  almost  all  of  us  in  danger 
of  liking  obsolete  words  and  poetic  diction  too  much 
or  too  little.  It  is  everything  for  the  young  person, 
and  especially  the  young  writer  to  have  a  chance 
of  seeing  the  essential  qualities  of  poetry  without 
the  slight  muddle  which  this  complication  intro- 
duces. 


PART  IV 

(FOR  CRITICS) 


Chapter  XVII 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  CRITICISM 

Mr.  Flint,  in  an  amusing  essay  in  one  of  the  Poetry 
book-shop's  Chapbooks,  declared  that  the  critic  and 
the  reviewer  not  only  never  are,  but  never  can  be  of 
any  use  in  the  republic  of  letters.  Critics  are,  he 
and  Mr.  Harold  Monro  hold,  nothing  but  middle- 
men who  snatch  an  unearned  profit,  both  of  money 
and  applause,  by  coming  officiously  between  con- 
sumer and  producer.  But  of  all  critics  he  arraigns 
the  reviewer  especially.  The  reviewer,  he  says, 
with  his  summaries  too  often  gives  the  reader  the 
impression  that  to  have  perused  his  review  is  almost 
the  same  as  to  have  read  the  book  reviewed,  while 
as  a  rule,  except  in  the  case  of  negligible  literary 
productions,  a  summary  gives  a  maimed  and  dis- 
torted view  of  the  author's  real  achievement  and  a 
misleading  impression  of  his  views.  It  is  almost 
bound,  in  any  case,  to  be  a  version  which,  jn  the 
case  of  an  argument,  is  a  resume  with  all  the  sub- 
tlety left  out,  and  in  the  case  of  a  work  of  art,  is 
a  skeleton  with  all  the  beauty  gone.  This  is,  he 
says,  particularly  true  in  the  case  of  poetry. 

*  The  only  proper  motive  of  the  review  is  to  call 
attention  to  something"  good  and  new.  And  this  is 
exactly  the  motive  which  least  often  animates  the  re- 


156  THE    FUNCTION   OF    CRITICISM 

viewer.  That  it  should  be  so  is  not  wholly  the  reviewer' s 
fault.  For  reviewing;  is,  unfortunately,  a  means  of 
livelihood ;  though  it  is  known  to  be  one  of  the  most 
corrupting,  degrading,  and  badly-paid  means  of  liveli- 
hood that  a  writing  man  can  ply.  The  reviewers  are 
merely  the  lowest  wage^slaves  in  the  modern  literary 
system.  Many  intelligent  men  find  themselves  in  this 
condition  ;  it  is  part  of  the  social  organisation  or  dis- 
organisation that  writers  who  have  honest  work  of  their 
own  to  do  find  that  this  is  the  only  work  for  which  they 
can  be  paid.  Consequently,  it  is  hardly  to  be  expected 
that  the  reviewer,  unless  he  has  become  so  depraved  as 
to  have  no  other  function,  should  enjoy  reviewing. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  any  man  with  the  slightest 
intellect  or  taste,  there  is  not  enough  good  verse  to 
occupy  a  reviewer  one  week  out  of  the  year.  There  is 
not  enough  pernicious  work  worth  attacking  to  occupy 
him  another  week.  So  that  twenty-five  twenty-sixths  of 
the  reviewer's  time  must  be  occupied  with  books  that 
are  perfectly  colourless.  And  the  dilemma  is  this  : 
either  a  reviewer  is  a  bad  writer  and  bad  critic,  and  he 
ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  intervene  between  books 
and  the  public ;  or  he  is  a  good  writer  and  a  good  critic, 
and  therefore  ought  not  to  be  occupied  in  writing  about 
inferior  books.  * 

Reviewing,  he  goes  on,  is  only  valuable  in  so  far 
as  it  is  discreet  advertisement :  '  It  cannot  be  too 
often  insisted  that  the  purpose — not  of  writing 
poetry,  but  of  publishing  it — should  be  primarily 
to  give  pleasure ;  and  that  the  purpose  for  which  we 
suppose  reviewing  was  divinely  intended  was 
primarily  to  indicate  such  works  as  can  give  the 
best  pleasure  to  the  people  who  otherwise  may  fail 
to  hear  of  their  existence.' 

Here  Mr.   Flint  is  beginning  to  perceive  what  is 
the  true,  if  humble,  function  of  the  critic  and  of  the 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM  1 57 

reviewer.  Hitherto,  be  it  noticed,  he  has  spoken 
entirely  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  '  producer,' 
never  from  that  of  the  'consumer/  But  con- 
sider, for  instance,  the  debt  owed  by  the  public 
to  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  that  incomparable  sleuth- 
hound.  But  for  him,  how  many  treasures  would 
have  been  lost.^  We  should  have  cause  to  be 
grateful  to  him,  if  only  as  the  preserver  and  dis- 
coverer of  the  half-dozen  first-rate  stanzas  that 
Torn  Dutt  had  to  give  to  the  world.  With  the 
analytical  critic  Mr.  Flint  will  have  no  truck  at 
all;  if  the  work  criticised  is  a  good  work  of  art, 
he  says  the  critic  should  just  tell  us  shortly  that 
this  is  his  opinion;  if  it  is  bad,  let  him  say  so 
briefly.  We  can  imagine  Mr.  Flint  reducing  the 
whole  affair  to  a  matter  of  plus  and  minus  signs. 

But  certain  objections  will  immediately  present 
themselves  in  the  reader's  mind  to  Mr.  Flint's 
line  of  argument.  In  the  first  place,  he  divides 
poetical  output  into  good  verse,  pernicious  verse, 
and  colourless  verse,  and  complains  that  the  re- 
viewer's time  will  be  chiefly  occupied  with  colour- 
less verse.  Here  we  have  an  instance  of  what  I 
said  before,  i,e,  that  the  difficulty  about  the  school 
of  criticism  to  v/hich  Mr.  Flint,  Mr.  Elliot,  Mr. 
Pound  and  Mr.  Munro  belong  is  that  they  do  not 
envisage  the  common  facts  of  life;  they  live  in  a 
world  of  their  own.  What  are  the  facts?  Not 
very  much  like  Mr.  Flint's  picture  of  them.  For 
the  last  two  or  three  years,  the  entire  output  of  pub- 
lished English  verse  has  passed  through  my  hands, 
and  it  is  the  most  rough  and  ready  analysis,  the  most 


158  THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM 

bald  inaccuracy  that  would  divide  the  books  which 
actually  come  under  a  critic  purview  into  good,  per- 
nicious and  colourless.  Let  us,  for  the  sake  of 
clarity,  take  the  good  books  first,  and  let  us  take 
the  word  '  criticism '  as  meaning  '  blame.*  In  the 
first  place,  directly  we  come  to  ,  consider  any 
actual  book  of  verse — even  if  it  be  a  long  narrative 
poem  like  '  Right  Royal  '  or  '  Paris  and  Helen,'  we 
find  that  it  can  hardly  ever  be  treated  as  an  entity. 
In  all  '  good  books  '  we  shall  find  a  passage  where 
the  poet  achieves  what  we  will,  for  convenience,  call 
absolute  excellence,  but  he  will  not  achieve  it 
throughout  the  book.  This  fact,  that  the  book 
does  not  always  come  up  to  the  level  of  the  best 
passages — or,  if  you  prefer  it,  is  always  adorned  by 
passages  of  outstanding  merit — will  be  perceived  by 
the  person  who  is  generally  called  the  '  general 
reader,'  but  whom  I  should  prefer  to  call  '  the  non- 
professional reader.'  But  he  will  apprehend  the 
inferior  parts  rather  as  a  sufferer  from  slight  tooth- 
ache perceives  his  discomfort;  he  realises  that 
there  is  something  wrong,  but  cannot  locate  his 
trouble  as  the  malice  of  any  particular  tooth.  When 
he  goes  to  his  dentist,  the  dentist  probably  says, 
'  Which  tooth  is  it  that  is  hurting  you  ?  '  and  he 
confesses  that  he  does  not  know,  and  can  only 
vaguely  indicate  its  whereabouts.  The  dentist,  as 
a  man  of  science,  who  deals  with  nice  concrete 
things  like  inflamed  nerves,  abscesses,  or  gumboils, 
is  able  to  tell  the  enquirer  exactly  what  is  wrong, 
and,  if  he  wants  to,  to  put  a  little  cross  against  the 
tooth  on  a  chart.     The  non-professional  reader  of 


THE    FUNCTION   OF    CRITICISM  1 59 

poetry  is  apt  to  appeal  to  the  critic  in  the  same  sort 
of  way,  but  now  we  are  dealing  with  the  world  of 
ideas,  a  world  in  which  the  dentist's  mark  on  a 
chart  and  Mr.  Flint's  plus  and  minus  signs  are 
seldom  appropriate.  But  even  in  this  compara- 
tively nebulous  region,  practice  and  a  certain 
faculty  of  selective  attention,  natural  or  acquired 
in  the  professional  critic,  will  make  him  able  to  put 
his  finger  at  least  on  the  grosser  errors.  He  will 
be  able  to  point  out,  say,  the  long  passage  which, 
postponing  the  crisis  of  a  narrative  poem,  has  acted 
as  a  non-conductor  to  the  reader's  emotion  and  sent 
him  away  with  a  sense  of  puzzle  and  bafflement. 
He  will  '  show  up  '  the  borrowed  or  cliche-filled 
opening  lines,  which  made  it  impossible  for  the 
reader  to  enjoy  the  remaining  excellence  of  the 
sonnet.  Or  again,  to  resume  our  metaphor,  the 
enquirer's  discomfort  may  not  have  been  from  an 
aching  tooth  at  all ;  it  may  not  have  been  alto- 
gether the  poet's  fault  that  his  reader  was  dissatis- 
fied. Misunderstandings  between  poet  and  reader 
occur  and  can  sometimes  be  remedied  by  a  word  of 
explanation.  In  every  work  of  art  the  artist  has 
probably  more  than  once  been  obliged  to  choose  be- 
tween two  alternative  excellences — to  steer  between 
Scylla  and  Charybdis.  He  has  wanted  to  express 
some  very  subtle  idea,  and  there  seemed  no  way  of 
expressing  it  except  by  an  oddity — some  eccen- 
tricity of  expression.  The  fact  of  the  eccentricity 
will  perhaps  be  the  first  thing  to  catch  the  non-pro- 
fessional reader's  attention.  He  will  very  likely 
be  upset  by  it  and  deprecate  it  so  extremely  that  he 


l6o  THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM 

may  be  unable  to  perceive  the  reason  for  its  em- 
ployment. If  the  poet's  notion  is  explained  to  him 
in  prose  in  a  roundabout  way,  and  it  is  pointed  out 
that  under  the  circumstances  the  oddity,  though  de- 
precated by  the  poet,  was  the  only  way  of  intro- 
ducing the  thought  or  the  image,  then  he  maj  be- 
come reconciled  to  it.  A  good  many  words  or 
phrases  have  achieved  general  acceptance  in  some 
such  way  as  this,  and  the  language  has  thus  been 
enriched  by  being  made  more  capable  of  expressing 
some  concept  with  sharpness  and  subtlety. 

In  fine,  if  in  the  '  good  book  '  what  has  been  ex- 
plained away  is  a  particular  fault,  its  isolation  and 
a  frank  admission  of  its  existence  will  leave  the 
reader  freer  to  enjoy  the  excellence  of  the  work. 
It  may  also  have  an  effect  upon  the  writer.  We  are 
noi  to  treat  the  books  we  have  under  censure  as  the 
last  products  of  their  makers,  a  piece  of  criticism 
is  often  as  helpful  to  an  author,  especially  a  young 
one,  as  it  is  to  his  reader.  I  remember  when  I  was 
about  seventeen  I  wrote  a  sort  of  historical  pageant 
which  was  acted  by  amateurs  and  then  published. 
It  illustrated  the  history  of  British  naval  power.  I 
liked  it  when  it  was  done,  but  I  could  see  that  there 
was  something  wrong  about  it.  I  shall  not  easily 
forget  my  gratitude  to  one  reviewer — I  think  of  the 
VV estminster  Gazette — who  put  his  finger  on  one  of 
the  blemishes  that  had  puzzled  me.  I  had  not  intro- 
duced a  single  sailor  into  any  one  of  my  five  naval 
episodes !  It  can  be  believed  that  this  had  given 
a  somewhat  detached,  not  to  say  dessicated  flavour 
to  my  production.     But  older  and  better  writers 


THE    FUNCTION   OF    CRITICISM  l6l 

than  I  have  sometimes  been  puzzled  exactly  to 
locate  the  faults  of  their  productions,  even  when 
these  productions  came  distinctly  under  the  cate- 
gory of  'good'  works-  For  it  is  a  commonplace  that 
no  work  of  a  poet  quite  equals  his  original  concep- 
tion or  completely  bodies  forth  what  he  had  to  say. 
If  then  even  good  books  may  sometimes  be  helped 
to  more  appreciative  readers  or  better  successors 
by  an  exposition  of  their  faults,  how  much  may  not 
be  done  with  the  books  which  Mr.  Flint  classes  as 
colourless  or  pernicious.  Here  the  critic  is  most 
needed  in  his  capacity  as  gardener.  He  must  shoo 
off  readers  whose  taste  might  be  corrupted  by  the 
futilities  of  the  pernicious  books ;  he  must  examine 
the  weedy  patches  of  the  '  colourless '  books  in  the 
hope  of  giving  a  chance  to  some  genuine,  if  at  the 
moment  feeble  poetic  rootlet.  AH  this  is  work 
which  the  critic  can  perform  even  in  the  most  re- 
stricted view  of  his  powers.  Of  his  real  function  of 
praise,  synthesis  and  explanation,  I  have  as  yet  said 
nothing. 

But  all  the  same,  Mr.  Flint  has  some  reason  on 
his  side.  In  a  perfect  world  it  may  well  be  that 
there  will  be  no  need  for  the  critic.  Perfect  reader 
and  perfect  poet  may  reach  a  perfect  understand- 
ing. I  for  one  shall  mildly  regret  my  office  though 
I  realise  that  in  saying  so  I  lay  myself  open  to  the 
accusation  which  Mr.  Flint  levels  against  the  con- 
tented critic — that  he  has  become  so  depraved  as 
to  have  no  other  function.  But  in  the  world  as  it 
is,  neither  readers  nor  writers  are  perfect,  though 
it  makes  a  consideration  of  the  functions  of  the 


l62  THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM 

critic  easier  if  we  assume  that  they  are  generally 
both  sufficiently  well-intentioned  and  honest.  Their 
mutual  incomprehension  will  give  the  critic  work 
enough  without  considering  the  case  of  the  male- 
factors. 

What  are  the  causes  that  make  ior  misunder- 
standing? Let  us  take  first  the  question  of  the 
progress,  or  to  be  more  strictly  neutral  and  not  to 
confuse  the  issue  by  a  statement  that  can  in  any 
way  be  held  controversial,  let  us  say  the  movement 
of  the  arts.  Poetry  is  almost  certain,  from  the 
nature  of  things,  to  move  more  quickly  from  phase 
to  phase  than  the  public  for  whom  it  is  intended. 
The  main  preoccupation  of  poets  is  their  work,  and 
poetic  movements  are  always,  therefore,  in  the  posi- 
tion of  flying  columns.  They  travel  in  three  years 
through  a  space  which  it  will  take  the  general  reader, 
who  is  encumbered  with  the  baggage  of  many  other 
interests — politics  or  poultry-keeping — ten  to  ac- 
complish. It  is  the  function  of  the  critic  to  act  as 
a  sort  of  connecting  file  between  the  two  parties. 

Though  the  public  may  be  slow,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion that  poets  are  often  precipitate.  If,  as  I  main 
tain,  the  function  of  the  arts  is  to  provide  the  best 
and  subtlest  kind  of  expression  and  communication 
between  one  human  being  and  another,  it  is  obvi- 
ously a  great  loss  if  the  poet  writes  in  some  sort  of 
cipher  which  only  the  adept  can  understand.  Per 
contra  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  plain  man  will 
have  to  enlarge  his  vocabulary  now  and  then  if  he 
is  to  get  the  full  benefit  of  the  poet's  expositions. 
It  is  in  this  work  that  the  critic  can  be  of  use. 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM  1 63 

There  is,  of  course,  a  curious  historical  instance 
of  the  '  time  lag  '  between  the  poet  and  his  audience. 
In  this  instance — because  it  occurred  at  a  time  when 
the  language  was  in  a  fluid  state,  the  lag  worked, 
paradoxically  enough,  the  other  way  round.  Dur- 
ing the  period  of  about  fifty  years  which  elapsed 
between  Chaucer's  death  and  the  work  of  Barclay, 
Skelton  and  Surrey,  the  language  in  which  Chaucer 
wrote  had  become  so  completely  obsolete — final  e's 
had  been  dropped,  French  pronunciations  anglicised 
— that  even  the  proper  scansion  of  '  The  Rhyme 
Royal  ^  was  lost,  and  in  their  rough,  often  unscan- 
able  work,  the  Tudor  poets  honestly  believed  them- 
selves to  be  following  exactly  in  the  footsteps  of 
their  master  Chaucer,  whose  work  they  couldn't 
make  scan  in  the  least.  Such,  however,  was  their 
'  Heart  of  Oak '  loyalty  to  him,  that  they  patiently 
copied  what  surely  even  to  them  must  have  seemed 
blemishes.  There  was  here  no  connecting  file  be- 
tween the  poet  and  his  audience.  (Readers  who 
desire  to  pursue  this  curious  point  will  find  it  set 
out  in  Professor  Berdan's  '  Early  Tudor  Poetry, 
1485 — 1547/  published  in  192 1.) 

But  even  these  expository  functions,  almost 
essential  though  they  are,  are  subordinate  to  the 
critic's  real  function  towards  the  poet.  I  have 
tried  in  a  former  chapter  to  prove  partly  on  com- 
monsenise  lines,  partly  in  view  of  the  theory  of  the 
arts  as  a  subtle  form  of  communication,  that  a  poet 
needs  a  public  almost  as  much  as  a  public  needs  a 
poet.  He  needs  to  know  that  he  has  an  audience. 
To  shout  the  inmost  secrets  of  your  soul  down  a 


164  THE    FUNCTION    OF    CRITICISM 

tunnel  and  not  to  be  sure  that  the  person  at  the 
other  end  is  listening,  or  even  that  he  has  not  gone 
away,  is  so  depressing  as  to  be  an  almost  impossible 
task.  Now  all  the  people  who  read  a  poet's  verse 
cannot  write  to  the  poet  and  tell  him  what  they 
think  about  it.  If  we  knew  that  the  penalty  for 
reading  a  book  of  verse  was  a  long  letter  to  its 
author,  we  should  most  of  us  give  up  reading  poe- 
try at  all.  But  the  public  need  not  do  that,  for  it 
has,  or  should  have,  a  functionary  at  hand  who  can 
act  as  its  spokesman — that  functionary  is  the  re- 
viewer, who  speaks  from  '  the  receiving  end  '  of  the 
poem.  He  tells  Mr.  Bays  that  his  verse  is  being 
read,  he  describes,  or  should  describe,  the  reac- 
tion of  a  reader  to  the  poem,  and  last,  and  most 
important  of  all,  he  praises.  He  does  not  neces- 
sarily eulogise,  some  kinds  of  blame  can  be  a 
subtle  and  stimulating  form  of  praise.  A  poet, 
say,  has  written  two  little  volumes  of  verse  into 
which  he  has  put  his  whole  heart,  he  has  torn 
pieces  out  of  his  live  flesh  to  put  into  the  books. 
Then  in  a  mood  of  reaction,  or  because  he  wants 
to  make  a  little  money,  he  perhaps  contemptuously 
offers  a  third  to  the  public — the  leavings  of  the 
first  two,  patched-up  stuff  where  the  clay  hope- 
lessly outbulks  the  gold.  If  nobody  sees  the 
difference  between  the  two  first  books  and  this 
third,  the  poet  will  probably  become  completely 
disheartened.  Nobody  has  noticed !  If  he  ever 
should  do  a  good  piece  of  work  again  and  should 
it  evoke  praise  from  the  critics,  that  praise  will 
now  be  tainted  and  savourless  to  him  because  he 


THE    FUNCTION   OF    CRITICISM  1 65 

knows  that  such  commendation  falls  on  the  just 
and  the  unjust.  In  fact,  we  might  almost  say  that 
he  publishes  his  bad  book  hoping  and  praying  that 
someone  will  notice  the  difference  between  it  and 
its  predecessors  and  will  take  the  trouble  of  trounc- 
ing him.  But  whenever  a  good  poet  seems  to  be 
really  trying  his  utmost,  whenever  he  produces  even 
a  few  lines  that  are  obviously  excellent,  he  ought  to 
be  praised  for  it.  Praise  is  necessary  to  him,  for 
the  act  of  composition  has  after-effects  like  those 
that  follow  on  any  state  of  exhilaration;  he  has 
been  in  travail  with  his  thought  and,  unlike  the 
mother  of  a  child,  he  is  apt  to  look  at  the  product 
of  his  pain,  and  w^onder  if  it  is  good  enough. 
And  if  it  is  good  enough,  if  the  fruit  of  his  labour 
is  a  beautiful  thing  which  we  have  enjoyed,  the 
least  we  can  do  is  to  tell  him  that  it  was  worth  it, 
to  cheer  him  up,  to  pat  him  on  the  back  and  to  tell 
him  of  the  pleasure  that  his  striving  with  his 
material  gave  us.  But  why  labour  an  elementary 
point  .^  It  is  clear  in  every  other  field  of  human 
endeavour  that,  if  we  are  decently  humane,  we 
shall  get  more  out  of  our  '  profitable  servant.'  Why 
should  this  be  deemed  to  be  less  true  in  the  case  of 
the  artist,  who  is  the  most  sensitive  of  the  servants 
of  the  community,  the  man  who  above  all  others 
will  value  the  intangible  gratifications  of  praise 
and  prestige  ? 


Chapter  XVIII       • 

THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD 
CRITICS 

If  we  are  now  inclined  to  hold  that  the  functions 
of  a  critic  of  one  of  the  arts  are  those  which  we 
endeavoured  to  outline  in  the  last  chapter,  i.e.  a 
sort  of  cross  between  that  of  a  missionary  and  matri- 
monial agent,  it  becomes  not  uninteresting  to  con- 
sider how  the  critics  of  a  past  age  regarded  them- 
selves. 

Let  us  take  as  typical  some  of  those  who  wrote 
most  agreeably.  We  shall  find  that  Dryden,  Dr. 
Johnson  and  Peacock,  for  example,  have  one  or 
two  characteristics  in  common  which  differentiate 
them  considerably  from  modern  critics.  In  the  first 
place — and  here  we  must  emphatically  include 
Spenser — they  wrote  very  much  better  for  the  most 
part.  To  say  this  is  at  once  to  praise  and  to  blame, 
for  in  their  work  we  are  often  conscious  that  they 
are  not  really  offering  us  criticism  at  all,  but  have 
gone  off  and  done  a  little  piece  of  creative  work  on 
their  own.  A  thousand  tim^es  the  better,  of  course, 
if  a  critical  product  be  both  a  good  intrinsic  work 
of  art  and  also  a  good  piece  of  reasoning,  analysis 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS  1 67 

or  appreciation.  But  the  old  critics  are  apt  to 
sacrifice  the  purpose  of  their  work  for  the  sake  of 
charming  the  reader,  or  rather  in  a  fit  of  irresistible 
enthusiasm,  they  take  part  in  the  game  which  they 
should  umpire.  Again,  Johnson,  Dryden  and  Pea- 
cock take  a  great  deal  more  '  as  read '  than  the 
modern  critic  does.  Their  own  position,  that  of 
art,  and  that  of  the  reader,  seem  to  them  so  obvious 
as  not  to  need  any  particular  exposition.  Last  of 
all — and  this  is  to  my  mind  their  chief  est  virtue — 
they  all  possess  gusto.  They  love  beauty,  they 
love  learning,  they  enjoy  their  tasks. 

This  love  of  his  subject,  combined  with  his  cap- 
tivating style  and  his  exquisite  freshness,  makes 
Sidney's  Defence  of  Poesie  one  of  the  most  en- 
chanting of  books.  In  reading  it  we  seem  to  have 
ecaped  into  a  sort  of  Paradise.  In  the  delicious 
atmosphere  that  he  creates  all  need  for  the  pedan- 
tries of  comparison  and  analysis,  the  tedious 
w^eighing  of  poetry  in  the  scales  of  aesthetic  value, 
drop  away  from  us.  The  spirit  of  lyric  poetry 
seems  to  walk  by  us  and  infuse  us  with  her  delight. 
And  all  the  time,  though  he  never  quite  openly  tells 
us  what  it  is  he  knows,  we  are  sure  that  this  divine 
child  has  penetrated  to  a  knowledge  of  the  inner 
poetic  truths.  We  feel,  as  we  walk  with  Sidney 
down  these  flowering  meadows,  like  the  youth  in 
the  ^  Romaunt  of  the  Rose.'  He,  rising  early  on  a 
sunny  May  morning  and  crossing  through  the  fields 
and  past  the  brooks,  finds  a  high  garden  wall  in 
front  of  him  with  its  green  door  ajar,  and  suddenly 
enters  into  that  fresh  place  of  birds,  flowers,  foun- 


1 68       THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

tains  and  of  grass,  where  later,  Love  is  to  shoot  at 
him,  and  where  he  finds  the  crimson  rosebud. 

Let  me  recall  this  divine  treatise  to  the  reader. 
He  will  perhaps  forgive  me  if  I  quote  rather  at 
length  from  a  book  which  he  may  have  at  hand  on 
his  shelves.  If  I  merely  give  him ,  chapter  and 
verse  he  will  not  take  it  down  I  will  wager,  so  if 
for  the  purposes  of  the  contentions  of  this  book  I 
want  him  to  know  two  or  three  passages  which  are 
contained  in  it,  I  must  set  down  all  of  Sidney  that 
he  is  to  know.  My  purpose  in  dealing  thus  at 
length  with  a  past  critical  age  is  to  bring  out  two 
points. 

First  I  want  to  show  that  many  of  the  conten- 
tions as  to  the  nature  of  poetry  which  I  have  tried 
to  prove  here  are  not  invented  either  by  me  or  by 
any  other  present-day  critic.  Look  carefully  at 
what  I  have  quoted  from  Sidney's  Defense,  and 
you  will  see  the  germs  of  most  of  the  modern  aesthe- 
tic beliefs  which  I  have  attempted  to  state.  The 
only  nev/  element  is  that  we  have  endeavoured  to 
make  as  much  as  possible  of  an  old  poetic  faith, 
conscious  and  explicit.  Sidney  asserts.  We  have 
endeavoured  to  support  similar  assertions  by  argu- 
ment. 

Secondly,  I  want  to  exemplify  what  I  believe, 
that  is,  that  criticism  is  not  as  Mr.  Flint  tries  to 
persuade  us,  necessarily  dull  to  read  nor  '  degrad- 
ing '  to  write. 

Sidney's  book  opens  with  the  praises  of  that  band 
of  poets  who  of  old  were  the  first  '  that  made 
pennes  deliverers  of  their  knowledge  to  posteritie/ 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS       1 69 

These  were  the  poets  who  '  with  their  charming^ 
sweetness  drew  wild,  untamed  wits  to  an  admira- 
tion of  knowledge.' 

*  So  as  Amphion,  was  said  to  moove  stones  with  his 
Poetry,  to  build  Thebes,  and  Orpheus  to  be  listned  to 
by  beasts,  indeed;  stonie  and  beastly  people.* 

The  philosophers  of  Greece,  he  goes  on,  for  a 
long  time  concealed  themselves  under  the  mask  of 
poets  and  sang  their  philosophy  in  verse,  '  or  rather 
they  being  poets,  did  exercise  their  delightful 
vaine  in  those  points  of  highest  knowledge.' 

All  others,  such  as  actors  and  players,  astrono- 
mers, geometricians,  arithmeticians,  grammarians, 
rhetoricians  and  logicians,  natural  and  moral  philo- 
sophers, are  all  men  who  only  build  upon  the  depth 
of  nature,  and  '  without  the  works  of  nature  they 
could  not  consist.' 

*  Only  the  Poet  disdeining"  to  be  tied  to  any  such 
subjection,  lifted  up  with  the  vigfor  of  his  own  invention, 
doth  grow  in  effect  into  an  other  nature  :  in  makings 
things  either  better  than  nature  bring-eth  foorth,  or 
quite  a  new,  formes  such  as  never  were  in  nature  :  as 
the  Heroes,  Demigfods,  Cyclops,  Chymeras,  Furies,  and 
such  like;  so  as  he  gfoeth  hand  in  hand  with  nature, 
not  enclosed  within  the  narrow  warrant  of  her  gifts,  but 
freely  raunging  within  the  Zodiack  of  his  owne  wit. 
Nature  never  set  foorth  the  earth  in  so  rich  Tapistry  as 
diverse  Poets  have  done,  neither  with  so  pleasaunt 
rivers,  fruitful!  trees,  sweete  smelling  flowers,  not  what- 
soever els  may  make  the  too  much  loved  earth  more 
lovely  :  her  world  is  brasen,  the  Poets  only  deliver  a 
golden.  But  let  those  things  alone  and  goe  to  man,  for 
whom  as  the  other  things  are,  so  it  seemeth  in  him  her 
uttermost  cunning  is  imploied  :  and  know  whether  she 
have  brought  foorth  so  true  a  lover  as  Theagenes,   so 


I/O   THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

constant  a  friend  as  Pylades,  so  valiant  a  man  as 
Orlando,  so  right  a  Prince  as  Xenophon's  Cyrus,  so 
excellent  a  man  every  way  as  Virgil's  Aeneas/ 

Sidney  will  have  his  poets  defined  and  confined 
by  no  rules  of  rhyme  or  of  metre. 

*  There  have  been  most  excellent  poets  that  never 
versified  :  as  Xenophon  or  Heliodorus  in  his  sugared 
invention  of  that  picture  of  love  in  Theagenes  and 
Chariclea.  It  is  not  ryming  and  versing  that  maketh  a 
Poet,  (no  more  than  a  long  gown  maketh  an  Advocate, 
who  though  he  pleaded  in  Armour,  should  be  an  Ad- 
vocate and  no  souldier)  but  it  is  that  faining  notable 
images  of  vertues,  vices,  or  what  els,  with  that  de- 
lightful teaching,  which  must  be  the  right  describing 
note  to  know  a  Poet  by.  Although  indeed  the  Senate 
of  Poets  hath  chosen  verse  as  their  fittest  raiment  : 
meaning  as  in  matter,  they  passed  all  in  all,  so  in  maner, 
to  go  beyond  them  :  not  speaking  table  talke  fashion, 
or  like  men  in  a  dreame,  words  as  they  chanceably  fall 
from  the  mouth,  but  peasing  each  sillable  of  cache  word 
by  just  proportion,  according  to  the  dignitie  of  the 
subject. ' 

The  end  of  all  philosophy,  of  music,  of  mathe- 
matics and  of  astronomy  is,  he  continues,  '  but  to 
draw  us  to  as  high  a  perfection  as  our  degenerate 
selves  might  well  be  capable  of.' 

The  end  of  all  earthly  learning  is  virtuous 
action,  those  '  whose  skill  most  serves  to  bring  forth 
that  have  a  just  title  to  be  Princes  over  all  the  rest.' 
Are  we  to  give  this  title  to  the  poet  or  to  the  man 
of  ethics?  Forth  steps,  says  Sidney,  the  moral 
philosopher, 

*  whom  me  thinkes  I  see  comming  towards  me,  with  a 
sullain  gravitie,  as  though  they  could  not  abide  vice  by 
day-light,    rudely   cloathed,    for   to   witnesse  outwardly 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS       17I 

their  contempt  of  outward  things,  with  bookes  in  their 
hands  against  glorie,  whereto  they  set  their  names  : 
sophistically  speaking  against  subtilitie,  and  angry  with 
any  man  in  whom  they  see  the  foule  fault  of  anger. 
One  that  hath  no  other  guide  but  a  phylosopher  shall 
wade  in  him  till  he  be  olde,  before  he  shall  finde  suffi- 
cient cause  to  be  honest.  For  his  knowledge  standeth 
so  upon  the  abstract  and  generall,  that  happie  is  that 
man  who  may  understand  him,  and  more  happie,  that 
can  apply  what  he  dothe  understand.  On  the  other 
side,  the  Historian  wanting  the  precept,  is  so  tied,  not 
to  what  should  be,  but  to  what  is,  to  the  particular 
truth  of  things,  and  not  to  the  general  reason  of  things, 
that  his  example  draweth  no  necessarie  consequence, 
and  therefore  a  lesse  f ruitfull  doctrine.  Now  doth  the 
peerlesse  Poet  performe  both,  for  whatsoever  the  Philo- 
sopher saith  should  be  done,  he  gives  a  perfect  picture 
of  it  by  some  one,  by  whom  he  presupposeth  it  was 
done,  so  as  he  coupleth  the  general  notion  with  the 
particular  example.  .  .  .  For  as  in  outward  things  to 
a  man  that  had  never  seene  an  Elephant,  or  a  Rinoceros, 
who  should  tell  him  most  exquisitely  all  their  shape, 
cullour,  bignesse,  &  particuler  marks,  or  of  a  gorgious 
pallace  an  Architecture,  who  declaring  the  full  beawties, 
might  well  make  the  hearer  able  to  repeat  as  it  were 
by  roat,  all  he  had  heard,  yet  should  never  satisfie  his 
inward  conceit,  with  being  witnesse  to  it  selfe  of  a  true 
lively  knowledge.' 

For  there  are  many  infallible  grounds  of  wisdom 

which 

*  lie  darke  before  the  imaginative  and  judging  power,  if 
they  be  not  illuminated  or  figure  forth  by  the  speaking 
picture  of  Poesie.  .  .  .  Certainly  even  our  Saviour 
Christ  could  as  well  have  given  the  morall  common 
places  of  uncharitablenesse  and  humblenesse,  as  the 
divine  narration  of  Dives  &  Lazarus,  or  of  disobedience 
8t  mercy,  as  that  heavenly  discourse  of  the  lost  childe 
and  the  gracious  Father,  but  that  his  through  searching 
wisedome,  knew  the  estate  of  Dives  burning  in  hell,  & 


172       THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

of  Lazarus  in  Abraham's  bosome,  would  more  con- 
stantly as  it  were,  inhabit  both  the  memorie  and  judge- 
ment. Truly,  for  my  selfe  (me  seemes)  I  see  before 
mine  eyes,  the  lost  childs  disdainful  prodig-alitie,  turned 
to  envy  a  Swines  dinner  :  which  by  the  learned  Divines 
are  thought  not  Historical  acts,  but  instructing  Parables 
.  .  .  But  the  Poet  is  the  food  for  the  tendrest  stomacks, 
the  Poet  is  indeed,   the  right  populer  Philosopher.' 

We  shall  not  find  such  insight  till  we  come  to  the 
epoch  of  Matthew  Arnold,  and  nowhere  else  in  the 
world,  I  think,  shall  we  find  the  case  for  poetry 
stated  w4th  such  magical  beauty. 

If  Sidney  gave  to  poets  in  general  their  proper 
place  in  the  scheme  of  things,  Johnson  admirably 
fulfilled  the  critic's  other  task  of  putting  a  particu- 
lar writer  and  his  public  en  rapport.  He  made 
many  mistakes.  A  man  so  didactic,  so  fond  of  a 
positive  assertion  could  not  fail  to  do  that.  For 
instance,  he  levelled  against  Gray's  '  Ruin  seize 
thee,  ruthless  king ' — I  forget  in  what  words — 
the  sort  of  accusation  that  many  critics  now  apply 
to  the  work  of  poets  like  the  Sitwells.  He  de- 
clared that  the  poem  being  merely  odd,  though 
very  popular  at  the  moment,  could  obviously  not 
possibly  live.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  Shake- 
speare that  Johnson  could  not  understand,  but  to 
the  merits  that  he  did  perceive,  even  when  they 
were  not  merits  that  he  personally  valued  very 
much,  he  was  scrupulously  fair.  His  sense  of  jus- 
tice was  always  indeed  one  of  the  outstanding 
features  of  his  dealings  with  the  poets  whom  he 
criticised.  A  perfect  example,  of  course,  at  once 
of   his  humour  and    of  his    candour   is    found   in 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS       1 73 

The  Lives  of  the  Poets  in  his  phrase  about  the 
minor  poet  whose  work  he  felt  he  ought  to  like 
better :  '  I  had  rather  praise  him  than  read  him.' 
What  reviewer  has  not  echoed  that  saying !  Once 
brief  Dr.  Johnson  for  a  poet,  and  he  would  gener- 
ally search  out  every  possible  merit  in  him. 

His  most  amusing  criticisms  are  generally 
allowed  to  be  contained  in  the  various  things  that 
he  wrote  about  Shakespeare,  notably  The  Proposals 
for  Printing  the  Dramatic  Works  of  William 
Shakespeare,  and  the  Preface  to  this  edition,  when 
executed.  In  1756,  when  the  book  was  published, 
Shakespeare  still  required  a  great  deal  of  '  explain- 
ing away  '  and  suffered  then,  as  now,  alike  from 
absurd  adulation  and  from  stupid  misunderstand- 
ing. The  intellectual  bloods  of  the  day  reacted  as 
surely  to  the  adulation  then  current  as  did  Mr. 
Shaw  or  as  do  still  a  dozen  young  people  of  light 
and  leading  to  the  present  atmosphere  of  Stratford- 
on-Avon.  Dr.  Johnson  opens  his  remarks  with  a 
right  and  left  at  both  unthinking  admirers  and 
mechanical  disparagers  : 

*  That  praises  are  without  reason  lavished  on  the  dead, 
and  that  the  honours  due  only  to  excellence  are  paid  to 
antiquity,  is  a  complaint  likely  to  be  always  continued 
by  those,  who,  being  able  to  add  nothing  to  truth,  hope 
for  eminence  from  the  heresies  of  paradox.* 

Johnson  was   always   careful   to   point   out  that 

Shakespeare  must  pot  be  judged  by  the  standard  of 

modern  poets,  because 

*  his   allusions    are    so   often   undiscovered,    and    many 
beauties,  both  of  pleasantry  and  greatness,  are  lost  with 


174       THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

the  objects  to  which  they  were  united,   as  the  figures 
vanish  when  the  canvass  has  decayed. ' 

How  are  we,  he  asks,  to  rank  time  tests?  In  the 
passage  in  which  he  states  his  views  we  have  one  of 
the  best  examples  of  the  peculiarly  vigorous  pov/ers 
of  Dr.  Johnson's  mind,  and  perhaps  of  its  curious 
limitations. 

*  What  mankind  have  long  possessed  they  have  often 
examined  and  compared;  and  if  they  persist  to  value 
the  possession,  it  is  because  frequent  comparisons  have 
confirmed  opinion  in  its  favour.  As  among  the  works 
of  nature  no  man  can  properly  call  a  river  deep,  or  a 
mountain  high,  without  the  knowledge  of  many  moun- 
tains, and  many  rivers  ;  so,  in  the  productions  of  genius, 
nothing  can  be  styled  excellent  till  it  has  been  compared 
with  other  works  of  the  same  kind.  Demonstration 
immediately  displays  its  power,  and  has  nothing  to  hope 
or  fear  from  the  flux  of  years ;  but  works  tentative  and 
experimental  must  be  estimated  by  their  proportion  to 
the  general  and  collective  ability  of  man,  as  it  is  dis- 
covered in  a  long  succession  of  endeavours.  Of  the 
first  building  that  was)  raised,  it  might  be  with  certainty 
determined  that  it  was  round  or  square;  but  whether 
it  was  spacious  or  lofty  must  have  been  referred  to  time. 
The  Pythagorean  scale  of  numbers  was  at  once  dis- 
covered to  be  perfect ;  but  the  poems  of  Homer  we  yet 
know  not  to  transcend  the  common  limits  of  human 
intelligence,  but  by  remarking,  that  nation  after  nation, 
and  century  after  century,  has  been  able  to  do  little 
more  than  transpose  his  incidents,  new-name  his  charac- 
ters, and  paraphrase  his  sentiments. 

*  The  reverence  due  to  writings  that  have  long  sub- 
sisted arises  therefore  not  from  any  credulous  confidence 
in  the  superiour  wisdom  of  past  ages,  or  gloomy  per- 
suasion of  the  degeneracy  of  mankind,  but  is  the  conse- 
quence of  acknowledged  and  indubitable  positions,  that 
what  has  been  longest  known  has  been  most  considered, 
and  what  is  most  considered  is  best  understood.' 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS       1 75 

Dr.  Johnson  not  only  knew  how  to  praise,  but  he 
knew  how  to  frame  his  eulogies  so  that  we  should 
be  eager  to  read  them. 

*  It  was  said  of  Euripides,  that  every  verse  was  a 
precept;  and  it  may  be  said  of  Shakespeare^  that  from 
his  works  may  be  collected  a  system  of  civil  and 
economical  prudence.  Yet  his  real  power  is  not  shown 
in  the  splendour  of  particular  passages,  but  by  the 
progress  of  his  fable,  and  the  tenor  of  his  dialogue; 
and  he  that  tries  to  recommend  him  by  select  quotations, 
will  succeed  like  the  pedant  in  Hierocles,  who,  when 
he  offered  his  house  for  sale,  carried  a  brick  in  his 
pocket  as  a  specimen.  ... 

*  The  theatre,  when  it  is  under  any  other  direction, 
is  peopled  by  such  characters  as  were  never  seen,  con- 
versing in  a  language  which  was  never  heard,  upon 
topicks  which  will  never  arise  in  the  commerce  of 
mankind. 

*  Upon  every  other  stage  the  universal  agent  is  love, 
by  whose  power  all  good  and  evil  is  distributed,  and 
every  action  quickened  or  retarded.  To  bring  a  lover, 
a  lady,  and  a  rival  into  the  fable ;  to  entangle  them  in 
contradictory  obligations,  perplex  them  with  oppositions 
of  interest,  and  harass  them  with  violence  of  desires 
inconsistent  with  each  other;  to  make  them  meet  in 
rapture,  and  part  in  agony;  to  fill  their  mouths  with 
hyperbolical  joy  and  outrageous  sorrow ;  to  distress 
them  as  nothing  human  ever  was  distressed ;  to  deliver 
them  as  nothing  human  ever  was  delivered ;  is  the 
business  of  a  modern  dramatist.  For  this,  probability 
is  violated,  life  is  misrepresented,  and  language  is 
depraved.   .  .   . 

*  Other  dramatists  can  only  gain  attention  by  hyper- 
bolical or  aggravated  characters,  by  fabulous  and  un- 
exampled excellence  or  depravity,  as  the  writers  of 
barbarous  romances  invigorated  the  reader  by  a  giant 
and  a  dwarf ;  and  he  that  should  form  his  expectations 
of  human  affairs  from  the  play,  or  from  the  tale,  would 
be  equally  deceived.     Shakespeare  has  no  heroes ;    his 


176      THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

scenes  are  occupied  only  by  men,  who  act  and  speak  as 
the  reader  thinks  that  he  should  himself  have  spoken  or 
acted  on  the  same  occasion ;  even  where  the  agency 
is  supernatural,  the  dialogue  is  level  with  life.  ...  It 
may  be  said  that  he  has  not  only  shown  human  nature 
as  it  acts  in  real  exigencies,  but  as  it  would  be  found 
in  trials  to  which  it  cannot  be  exposed.' 

Shakespeare's  drama  'is  the  mirror  of  life.' 
There  we  may  read  '  human  sentiments  in  human 
language,'  witness  '  scenes  from  which  a  hermit  may 
estimate  the  transactions  of  the  world,  and  a  con- 
fessor predict  the  progress  of  the  passions.' 

Dennis  and  Rymer  think  his  Romans  not  suffi- 
ciently Roman;  and  Voltaire  censures  his  kings  as 
not  completely  royal.  A  senator,  say  they,  should 
not  be  made  to  play  the  buffoon,  and  it  is  indecent 
to  represent  the  Danish  usurper  as  a  drunkard. 

*  Shakespeare's  story  requires  Romans  or  Kings,  but 
he  thinks  only  on  men.  He  knew  that  Roniey  like  every 
other  city,  had  men  of  all  dispositions ;  and  wanting  a 
buffoon,  he  went  into  the  senate^house  for  that  which 
the  senate-house  would  certainly  have  afforded  him.  He 
was  inclined  to  show  an  usurper  and  a  murderer  not 
only  odious,  but  despicable ;  he  therefore  added  drunken- 
ness to  his  other  qualities,  knowing  that  kings  love 
wine  like  other  men,  and  that  wine  exerts  its  natural 
power  upon  kings.  These  are  the  petty  cavils  of  petty 
minds;  a  poet  overlooks  the  casual  distinction  of  country 
and  condition.* 

Here  and  there,  however,  Johnson  dates  himself 
and  shows  the  narrow  grooves  in  which  con- 
temporary morals  had  contrived  to  make  even  his 
vigorous  mind  run.  He  is  entirely  persuaded,  for 
instance,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  a  poet  to  be  didactic, 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS       1 77 

to  play  the  '  hortatory  policeman.'  He  takes  this 
as  basic  and  axiomatic,  and  arraigns  Shakespeare 
because 

*  he  sacrifices  virtue  to  convenience  and  is  so  much  more 
careful  to  please  than  to  instruct,  that  he  seems  to 
write  without  any  moral  purpose.  From  his  writings 
indeed  a  system  of  social  duty  may  be  selected,  for  he 
that  thinks  reasonably  must  think  morally ;  but  his 
precepts  and  axioms  drop  casually  from  him ;  he  makes 
no  just  distribution  of  good  or  evil,  nor  is  always  careful 
to  show  in  the  virtuous  a  disapprobation  of  the  wicked ; 
he  carries  his  persons  indifferently  through  right  and 
wrong,  and  at  the  close  dismisses  them  without  further 
care,  and  leaves  their  examples  to  operate  by  chance. 
This  fault  the  barbarity  of  his  age  cannot  extenuate; 
for  it  is  always  a  writer*s  duty  to  make  the  world  better, 
and  justice  is  a  virtue  independent  of  time  or  place.* 

It  is  in  the  section  devoted  to  blaming  Shake- 
speare that  we  shall  find  the  famous  passage  on 
quibbles  : 

*  A  quibble  is  to  Shakespeare  what  luminous  vapours 
are  to  the  traveller ;  he  follows  it  at  all  adventures ;  it 
is  sure  to  lead  him  out  of  his  way,  and  sure  to  engulf 
him  in  the  mire.  It  has  some  malignant  power  over 
his  mind,  and  its  fascinations  are  irresistible.  What- 
ever be  the  dignity  or  profundity  of  his  disquisition, 
whether  he  be  enlarging  knowledge  or  exalting  affection, 
whether  he  be  amusing  attention  with  incidents,  or 
enchaining  it  in  suspense,  let  but  a  quibble  spring  up 
before  him,  and  he  leaves  his  work  unfinished.  A 
quibble  is  the  golden  apple  for  which  he  will  always 
turn  aside  from  his  career,  or  stoop  from  his  elevation. 
A  quibble,  poor  and  barren  as  it  is,  gave  him  such 
delight,  that  he  was  content  to  purchase  it,  by  the 
sacrifice  of  reason,  propriety,  and  truth.  A  quibble  was 
to  him  the  fatal  Cleopatra  for  which  he  lost  the  world, 
and  was  content  to  lose  it.* 


178       THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

But  this  vigorous  attack  is  followed  by  as  warm 
a  defence  of  Shakespeare's  neglect  of  unities, 
especially  of  the  unity  of  place.  In  this  Johnson 
completely  pulverises  the  wretched  critics,  who,  he 
says,  have  hitherto  exulted  '  over  the  miseries  of  an 
irregular  poet.'  Dr.  Johnson  is  ready  to  assure 
them  that  they  are  assuming,  '  as  an  unquestionable 
principle,  a  position,  which,  while  their  breath  is 
forming  it  into  words,  their  understanding  pro- 
nounces to  be  false/  The  spectator  of  drama  is 
not  deluded,  he  does  not  believe  '  that  his  walk  to 
the  theatre  has  been  a  voyage  to  Egypt,'  or  if  he 
does  (Johnson  is  ready  with  the  butt  end  of  his 
pistol),  '  surely  he  that  imagines  this  may  imagine 
more.' 

*  Delusion  has  no  certain  limitations ;  if  the  spectator 
can  be  once  persuaded  that  his  old  acquaintances  are 
Alexander  and  Cmsar,  that  a  room  illuminated  with 
candles  is  the  plain  of  Pharsalia,  or  the  bank  of  Granicus, 
he  is  in  a  state  of  elevation  above  the  reach  of  reason, 
or  of  truth,  and  from  the  heights  of  empyrean  poetry 
may  despise  the  circumscriptions  of  terrestrial  nature.' 

The  truth  is,  of  course,  '  that  the  spectators  are 
always  in  their  senses,'  and  if  it  be  asked  how  the 
drama  moves  if  it  is  not  credited,  the  answer  is  that 
*  it  is  credited  with  all  the  credit  due  to  a  drama.' 
We  believe  in  what  we  read  in  much  the  same  way, 
and  '  are  agitated  in  reading  Henry  the  Fifth.  Yet 
no  man  takes  his  book  for  the  field  of  Agincourt' 

But  when  Dr.  Johnson  goes  on  to  speak  of  imita- 
tions, he  wanders  far  from  the  truth  after  that  will- 
o'-the-wisp,  and  supposes  that  the  arts  please 
because  they  bring  realities  to  the  mind. 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS   I  79 

There  are,  I  think,  not  many  -more  elements  to  be 
found  in  Johnson's  literary  criticism. 

He  wrote  amusingly,  he  possessed  immense 
volumes  of  commonsense  which  he  discharged  upon 
the  public  with  unexampled  vigour.  But  of  Mere- 
dith's '  fine  shades  and  nice  feelings '  he  knew 
hardly  anything,  and  so  was  always  a  better  critic 
of  the  dramatic  or  narrative  elements  of  literature 
than  of  the  poetic. 

When  we  turn  from  him  to  Peacock,  or  rather  to 
that  side  of  Peacock  which  the  malign  creature 
chose  to  display  for  the  discomfiture  of  poor 
Shelley  in  his  '  Four  Ages  of  Poetry,'  we  shall  find 
somxcwhat  similar  powers  and  similar  limitations. 
The  instruments — bludgeons  both — are  alike, 
though  they  are  v/ielded  to  such  different  ends. 

Peacock's  '  Four  Ages  of  Poetry  '  is,  perhaps, 
the  wittie3t  thing  that  that  very  v/itty  writer  ever 
wrote,  and  is  the  only  piece  of  criticism  which,  for 
hilarious  verve  and  the  power  to  make  the  reader 
chuckle,  can  compare  with  Dr.  Johnson's  work. 
Much  of  it  is  very  like  '  Candide  '  in  tone.  That 
Shelley  should  have  taken  the  attack  as  being  a 
serious  one,  or  as  in  the  least  representing  the 
writer's  opinion,  is  but  one  more  proof  of  Shelley's 
inordinate  ethical  preoccupations  and  his  uncon- 
querable seriousness. 

The  four  ages  of  poetry  are,  says  Peacock,  the 
ages  of  iron,  of  gold,  of  silver,  and  lastly  of  brass. 
In  the  iron  age  '  rude  bards  celebrate  in  rough 
num.bers  the  exploits  of  ruder  chiefs.'  This,  he 
goes  on,  '  is  the  age  of  society,  when  the  maxim,  To 


l8o      THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

keep  what  we  have  and  to  catch  when  we  can,  is  not 
yet  disguised  under  names  of  justice  and  the  forms 
of  law/  This  is  the  age  when  there  are  only  three 
trades  flourishing,  '  those  of  king,  thief  and  beggar  : 
the  beggar  being  for  the  most  part  a  king  deject 
and  the  thief  a  king  expectant.'  In  such  society 
every  man  not  only  desires  to  engross  to  himself  as 
much  power  and  property  as  possible,  but  he  is 
affected  by  a  longing  for  publicity.       That  is  : 

*  The  no  less  natural  desire  of  making-  known  to  as 
many  people  as  possible  the  extent  to  which  he  has 
been  a  winner  in  this  universal  game.  The  successful 
warrior  becomes  a  chief;  the  successful  chief  becomes 
a  king*;  his  next  want  is  an  org-an  to  disseminate  the 
fame  of  his  achievements  and  the  extent  of  his  posses- 
sions ;  and  this  orgfan  he  finds  in  a  bard,  who  is  always 
ready  to  celebrate  the  strength  of  his  arm,  being  first 
duly  inspired  by  that  of  his  liquor.*  The  bard  will 
*  tell  us  how  many  battles  such  an  one  has  fought,  how 
many  helmets  he  has  cleft,  how  many  breastplates  he 
has  pierced,  how  many  widows  he  has  made,  how  much 
land  he  has  appropriated,  how  many  houses  he  has  de- 
molished for  other  people,  what  a  large  one  he  has  built 
for  himself,  how  much  gold  he  has  stowed  away  in  it, 
and  how  liberally  and  plentifully  he  pays,  feeds,  and  in- 
toxicates the  divine  and  immortal  bards,  the  sons  of 
Jupiter,  but  for  whose  everlasting  songs  the  names  of 
heroes  would  perish.' 

He  goes  on  to  describe  the  process  by  which  the 
golden  age  is  reached.  Though  the  object  of  the 
bards  be  nothing  more  than  to  secure  a  share  of  the 
spoil,  they  achieve  their  ends  by  different  means; 
they  are  observing  and  thinking  while  others  are 
robbing   and    fighting.      They    are    not    only   his- 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS       l8l 

torians,  but  theologians,  moralists  and  legislators, 
and  very  soon  gain  the  reputation  of 

'  building  cities  with  a  song^  and  leading  brutes  with  a 
symphony, — ^which  are  only  metaphors  for  the  faculty 
of  leading  multitudes  by  the  nose. ' 

It  is  not  until  we  come  to  the  age  of  silver,  the 
age  of  recasting  and  of  giving  an  exquisite  polish  to 
the  poetry  of  the  age  of  gold,  the  age  of  which  Vir- 
gil is  the  most  obvious  and  striking  example,  that 
we  can  pierce  the  perfect  armour  of  Peacock's  rail- 
lery, and  catch  him  out  in  a  sentiment  at  once  genu- 
ine and  absurd.  He  seems  to  agree  with  Macau- 
lay,  who  said,  *  We  think  that  as  civilisation  ad- 
vances, poetry  almost  necessarily  declines/  As 
the  light  of  reason  grows  clearer,  says  Peacock, 
poetry,  the  language  of  passion  and  feeling, 
approaches  its  extinction. 

'  Pure  reason  and  dispassionate  truth  would  be  per- 
fectly ridiculous  in  verse,  as  we  may  judge  by  versifying 
one  of  Euclid's  demonstrations.  This  will  be  found 
true  of  all  dispassionate  reasoning  whatever,  and  all 
reasoning  that  requires  comprehensive  views  and  en- 
larged combinations.  It  is  only  the  more  tangible 
points  of  morality,  those  which  command  assent  at  once, 
those  which  have  a  mirror  in  every  mind,  and  in  which 
the  severity  of  reason  is  warmed  and  rendered  palatable 
by  being  mixed  up  with  feeling  and  imagination,  that 
are  applicable  even  to  what  is  called  moral  poetry  :  and 
as  the  sciences  of  morals  and  of  mind  advance  towards 
perfection,  as  they  become  more  enlarged  and  compre- 
hensive in  their  views,  as  reason  gains  the  ascendancy 
in  them  over  imaginations  and  feeling,  poetry  can  no 
longer  accompany  them  in  their  progress,  but  drops 
into  the  background,  and  leaves  them  to  advance  alone.* 


1 82       THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

We  in  this  age  are  inclined  instead  to  agree  with 
Renan  who,  half  serious,  half  whimsical,  said  that 
as  he  grew  older  he  more  and  more  inclined  to  the 
belief  that  many  of  the  most  profound  truths  were 
so  subtle  as  to  be  incapable  of  being  conveyed  from 
one  mind  to  another,  except  by  such  a  vehicle  as 
opera,  a  vehicle  which  brought  all  our  sources  of 
apprehension — our  senses — into  play.  But  Pea- 
cock is  not  at  home  among  fundamentals.  If  we 
want  to  enjoy  his  full  powers  we  must  seek  him  in 
the  top,  in  the  sparkling,  even  the  frothy  regions 
of  his  subject.  Apropos  of  the  dramatic  unities, 
he  resumes  his  best  Voltairian  vein  : 

*  Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries  used  time  and 
locality  merely  because  they  could  not  do  without  them, 
because  every  action  must  have  its  when  and  where  : 
but  they  made  no  scruple  of  deposing  a  Roman  Emperor 
by  an  Italian  Count  and  sending  him  off  in  the  disguise 
of  a  French  pilgrim  to  be  shot  with  a  blunderbuss  by 
an  English  archer.* 

But  perhaps  the  most  fascinating  passage  in  the 
whole  essay  is  the  following  tiny  satiric  picture  of 
the  Lake  poets.  These  men,  Peacock  says,  have 
argued  thus  : 

*  All  that  is  artificial  is  anti-poetical.  Society  is 
artificial,  therefore  we  will  live  out  of  society.  The 
mountains  are  natural,  therefore  we  will  live  in  the 
mountains.  There  we  shall  be  shining  models  of  purity 
and  virtue,  passing  the  whole  day  in  the  innocent  and 
amiable  occupation  of  going  up  and  down  hill,  receiving 
poetical  impressions,  and  communicating  them  in  im- 
mortal verse  to  admiring  generations.* 

Peacock  affirms  that  he  burns  with  impatience  at 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS       1 83 

the  sight  of  poets,  all  of  whom,  more  or  less,  as 
science  and  philosophy  advance,  still '  wallow  in  the 
rubbish  of  departed  ignorance,  raking  up  the  ashes 
of  dead  savages  to  find  gewgaws  and  rattles  for  the 
grown  babies  of  the  age/ 

Poor  Shelley  writhed  under  all  this  like  a  lost 
soul  under  the  sly,  red-hot  prods  of  a  small,  mali- 
cious devil.  But  he  could  think  of  adequate 
answers  to  none  of  the  impish  jibes,  and  his 
'  Defence  of  Poetry '  is  a  document  to  bring 
despair  to  the  heart  of  the  logically-minded.  He 
commits  all  the  crimes.  He  never  defines,  he  uses 
the  same  word  in  two  or  three  different  senses, 
builds  toppling  pyramids  of  argument  on  founda- 
tions of  gratuitous  assumption,  and,  emerging  giddy 
from  the  mazes  of  a  circular  argument,  takes  refuge 
in  a  page  or  two  of  unsupported  ex  cathedra  state- 
ment. But  with  all  its  absurdities  and  faults  there 
is  something  splendid  about  Shelley's  '  Defence.' 
We  feel  the  warmth  and  light  of  the  authentic 
poetic  fire. 

He  fully  realises  Renan's  argument,  but  has,  as 
usual,  given  no  very  clear  utterance  to  it  or  to  what 
he  wants  to  say,  particularly  about  metre,  and  has 
mixed  it  up  with  another  point,  i.e,  the  value  of 
translations. 

*  The  language  of  poets  has  ever  affected  a  certain 
uniform  and  harmonious  recurrence  of  sound,  without 
which  it  were  not  poetry,  and  which  is  scarcely  less 
indispensable  to  the  communication  of  its  influence  than 
the  words  themselves,  without  reference  to  that  peculiar 
order.  Hence  the  vanity  of  translation  :  it  were  as  wise 
to  cast  a  violet  into  a  crucible  that  you  might  discover 


184       THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

the  formal  principle  of  its  colour  and  odour,  as  seek 
to  transfuse  from  one  language  into  another  the  crea- 
tions of  a  poet.' 

He  tries  again.     The  following  beautiful  passage  is 
the  result : 

*  Poetry  is  ever  accompanied  with  pleasure ;  all  spirits 
upon  which  it  falls  open  themselves  to  receive  the 
wisdom  which  is  mingled  with  its  delight.  In  the 
infancy  of  the  world,  neither  poets  themselves  nor  their 
auditors  are  fully  aware  of  the  excellence  of  poetry  : 
for  it  acts  in  a  divine  and  unapprehended  manner,  be- 
yond and  above  consciousness.' 

Poets  are  looked  for  in  ages  of  change  and  reform. 

*  We  live  among  such  philosophers  and  poets  as  sur- 
pass beyond  comparison  any  who  have  appeared  since 
the  last  national  struggle  for  civil  and  religious  liberty. 
The;  most  unfailing  herald,  companion,  and  follower  of 
the  awakening  of  a  great  people  to  work  a  beneficial 
change  in  opinion  and  institution,  is  poetry.  At  such 
periods  there  is  an  accumulation  of  the  power  of  com- 
municating and  receiving  intense  and  impassioned  con- 
ceptions respecting  man  and  nature.  The  persons  in 
whom  this  power  resides  may  often,  as  far  as  regards 
many  portions  of  their  nature,  have  little  apparent  cor- 
respondence with  that  spirit  of  good  of  which  they  are 
the  ministers.' 

*  Poets  are  the  hierophants  of  an  unapprehended  in- 
spiration ;  the  mirrors  of  the  gigantic  shadows  which 
futurity  casts  upon  the  present  :  the  words  which  express 
what  they  understand  not  :  the  trumpets  which  sing  to 
battle  and  feel  not  what  they  inspire  :  the  influence  which 
is  moved  not,  but  moves.  Poets  are  the  unacknowledged 
legislators  of  the  world.* 

Umpire,  you  have  put  off  the  white  coat  of 
neutrality  and  are  trying  your  hand  at  the  game  ! 
This  is  not  criticism,  this  is  poetry. 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS       1 85 

In  the  same  volume  of  the  Percy  Reprints  as 
*  The  Four  Ages  of  Poetry  '  and  Shelley's  Defence* 
Mr.  Brett  Smith  has  bound  up  Browning's  Essay 
on  Shelley,  an  essay  unfortunately  written,  like 
Shelley's,  in  a  rather  lofty  poetic-prose  style.  In 
spite  of  this  unpromising  medium,  Browning  has 
nevertheless  been  able  to  imprison  in  the  essay 
some  of  his  wonderful  gift  for  psychology.  Buried 
under  the  verbiage  are  some  extremely  interesting 
observations  on  the  difference  between  objective 
and  subjective  poets.  In  speaking  of  Shelley, 
he  generalises  and  speaks  of  the  subjective  poet  in 
general : 

*  He  is  rather  a  seer,  accordingly,  than  a  fashioner, 
and  what  he  produces  will  be  less  a  work  than  an  efflu- 
ence. That  effluence  cannot  be  easily  considered  in 
abstraction  from  his  personality, — being"  indeed  the  very 
radiance  and  aroma  of  his  personality,  projected  from  it 
but  not  separated.* 

If  we  desire  to  understand  his  poetry,  we  must 
know  something  of  the  subjective  poet's  character : 

*  Both  for  love's  and  for  understanding's  sake  we 
desire  to  know  him,  and  as  readers  of  his  poetry  we 
must  be  readers  of  his  biography  also.' 

Very  remarkable  seems  to  me  the  passage  which 
I  like  to  take  as  prophetic, — a  statement  of  the  rela- 
tive position  of  the  Victorian  and  the  modern  poet : 

*  There  is  a  time  when  the  general  eye  has,  so  to  speak, 
absorbed  its  fill  of  the  phenomena  around  it,  whether 
spiritual  or  material,  and  desires  rather  to  learn  the 
exacter  significance  of  what  it  possesses,  than  to  receive 
any  augmentation  of  what  is  possessed.' 


l86       THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

And  in  this  passage  we  see  the  beginnings  of  the 
new  spirit,  a  spirit  which  we  find  full-fledged  in 
Matthew  Arnold,  a  writer  who  but  for  the  facts  of 
chronology,  I  should  certainly  have  included  in  the 
next  chapter,  and  have  considered  with  the  new 
critics.  In  turning  the  pages  of  Matthew  Arnold's 
critical  essays,  we  find  that  vvc  are  in  touch  with  a 
man  with  a  modern  outlook.  There  are  differences 
between  his  writings  and  the  writings  of  Mr.  Heuf- 
fer  and  Mr.  Flint — we  cannot  see  either  of  these 
WTiters  turning  the  famous  passage  whose  refrain  is 
*  Wragg  is  in  custody.'  But  if  I  may  allow  myself 
for  once  to  use  what  I  have  throughout  this  book 
studiously  tried  to  avoid — the  jargon  of  psycho- 
analysis— Matthew  Arnold  for  the  first  time  gives 
us  the  peculiar  sort  of  introvertism  that  we  get  in 
modern  writers.  In  the  midst  of  the  whirlwind  of 
Victorian  activity,  he  pleads  for  reflection,  for  a  dis- 
interested mode  of  looking  at  life  and  facts.  Let 
us,  he  says,  return  to  the  serener  life  of  the  mind. 

*  Let  us  think  of  quietly  enlarging^  our  stock  of  true 
and  fresh  ideas,  and  not,  as  soon  as  we  get  an  idea  or 
half  an  idea,  be  running  out  with  it  into  the  street,  and 
trying  to  make  it  rule  there.' 

It  is  the  detachment  which  he  expresses  here  which 
enables  him  to  see  the  world  of  literature,  not  as 
consisting  of  '  English  bards  and  Scotch  reviev/ers  ' 
—that  is,  of  two  opposing  camps  of  creative  and 
critical  minds,  but  as  a  body  of  people  attempting 
by  various  but  still  somewhat  similar  methods  to 
attain  ends  in  the  world  of  ideas.  And  in  this 
larger  vision  he  is  easily  able  to  pass  from  the  critic 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS       1 87 

to  the  creative  writer  and  back  again  and  apply  the 
same  general  principle  to  theni  both. 

*  Judging-  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  critic*s  one  busi- 
ness ;  and  so  in  some  sense  it  is ;  but  the  judgment  which 
almost  insensibly  forms  itself  in  a  fair  and  clear  mind, 
along  with  fresh  knowledge,  is  the  valuable  one;  and 
thus  knowledge,  and  ever  fresh  knowledge,  must  be  the 
critic's  great  concern  for  himself;  and  it  is  by  commu- 
nicating fresh  knowledge,  and  letting  his  own  judgment 
pass  along  with  it — ^but  insensibly,  and  in  the  second 
place,  not  the  first,  as  a  sort  of  companion  and  clue,  not 
as  an  abstract  lawgiver — that  he  will  generally  do  most 
good  to  his  readers/ 

If,  he  goes  on,  the  reader  is  disappointed  because 
he  does  not  speak  directly  of  the  critics  and  of  the 
criticisms  of  the  current  English  literature  of  the 
day,  he  is  sorry, 

*  but  I  am  bound  by  my  own  definition  of  criticism  : 
a  disinterested  endeavour  to  learn  and  propagate  the  best 
that  is  known  and  thought  in  the  world,  * 

He  goes  on  to  suggest  that  every  critic  of  current 
English  literature  ought  to  try  and  possess  one 
great  literature  besides  his  own,  and  the  more  unlike 
his  own,  the  better. 

*  Europe  must  be  regarded  as  being,  for  intellectual 
and  spiritual  purposes,  one  great  confederation,  bound 
to  a  joint  action  and  working  to  a  common  result ;  and 
members  must  have,  for  their  proper  outfit,  a  knowledge 
of  Greek,  Roman,  and  Eastern  antiquity,  and  of  one 
another.  That  modern  nation  will,  in  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  sphere,  make  most  progress,  which  most 
thoroughly  carries  out  this  programme.* 

Perhaps  some  of  us  at  this  date  would  prefer  to 
substitute  for  the  critic's  knowledge  of  antiquity, 


1 88   THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  OLD  CRITICS 

nay,  even  for  his  knowledge  of  another  European 
literature,*  a  knowledge  of  some  aspects  of  those 
new  facts  about  the  human  mind  which  psychology 
and  metaphysics  have  recently  made  plain.  Of 
course,  the  critic  cannot  know  too  much,  and  per- 
haps it  is  a  personal  idiosyncracy  which  makes  me 
believe  that  a  knowledge  of,  or  at  least  an  interest 
in,  the  facts  which  seem  to  underlie  the  apprehen- 
sion and  creation  of  literature,  are  likely  to  be  of 
more  value  to  the  critic  than  a  knowledge  of  another 
great  literature,  i.e,  of  a  still  larger  number  of 
instances  of  the  phenomena  of  poetry. 

It  seems  to  me  too  that  in  working  partly  on 
psychological  and  metaphysical  lines,  not  only  has 
the  critic  the  best  chance  of  understanding  the  par- 
ticular literature  which  he  is  studying,  but  he  will 
perform  another  function,  that  of  increasing  the 
bonds  which  unite  literature  and  life.  For  litera- 
ture, and  especially  poetry,  may  be  likened  to  the 
earth  giant  who  fought  with  Hercules.  He,  the 
reader  will  remember,  renewed  his  strength  every 
time  that  Hercules'  knock-down  blow  brought  him 
into  contact  with  the  life-giving  earth.  When  Her- 
cules hit  upon  the  device  of  detaching  him  from 
this  revivifying  contact  with  reality,  his  vigour 
withered  away. 


Chapter  XIX 

THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW 
CRITICS. 

Suppose  a  new  critic  anH  an  old  were  to  be  asked 
to  deliver  a  lecture  upon  the  Pictorial  Arts  in 
Verse.  The  old  critic  would  begin  by  collecting 
all  the  instances  he  could  think  of — '  Pope,  Now ! 
How  did  the  passage  run  ?  ' 

*  Come  then  the  colours  and  the  ground  prepare  ! 
Dip  in,  the  rainbow,  trick  her  off  in  air.' 

and  then  : 

*  Beauty  frail  flower  that  every  season  fears 
Lives  in  thy  canvas  for  a  thousand  years. ' 

Then  Browning's  '  Tobias  and  the  Angel.'  He 
would  search  the  Chaucerians — all  those  '  Temples 
of  Fame.'  There  was  so  much  about  architecture 
and  sculpture,  surely  he  could  dig  out  something 
about  painting  too.  Browning  again,  Fra  Lippo 
Lippi  and  Raphael ;  then  Wordsworth's  '  The 
Light  that  never  was  on  Sea  or  Land,'  then  various 
passages  from  '  Hero  and  Leander.'  The  modern 
critic,  though  he  might  very  likely  end  by  choosing 
out  the  same  examples,  would  set  to  work  quite  dif- 
ferently.    He  would  begin  by  trying  to  think  out 


igO      THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS 

an  abstract  theory.  How  can  the  peculiar  qualities 
of  a  thing  which  paint  gives  us — its  degree  of  lumi- 
nosity or  the  interaction  of  its  curves,  be  treated  in 
poetry?  Apart  from  direct  reference  to  painting, 
what  poems  are  written  from  the  painting  point  of 
view,  with  the  visual  qualities  of  the  material  ob- 
jects uppermost?  Would  it  be  absurd  to  say  that 
a  poem  about  a  picture  will  be  at  one  removed 
from  the  natural  object  because  it  is  a  copy  of  a 
copy?  A  picture  is  ding  an  sich,  an  object  just  as 
a  flower  is,  and  indeed,  in  that  it  is  to  some  extent 
a  pre-digested  object,  it  may  be  arguable  that  it  is 
a  better  subject  for  a  poet  than  a  crude  natural  ob- 
ject. And  so  on.  I  am  not  concerned  to  pit  these 
two  methods  against  one  another.  I  know,  of 
course,  to  Vv^hich  extreme  I  incline,  but  I  can  see  the 
dangers  of  both.  The  older  critics,  especially  those 
of  the  era  through  which  we  have  just  passed, 
critics  who  wrote  later  than  any  of  those  whose 
views  I  have  tried  to  set  forth  in  the  last  chapter, 
were  apt  to  become  very  much  too  concrete.  They 
got  interested  in  phenomena  and  in  collecting  more 
and  more  examples  of  phenomena,  and  often  lost 
sight  of  the  causes  for  which  they  studied.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  analytical  critic  is  apt  to  become  too 
detached.  It  is,  alas,  so  fatally  easy  to  construct  a 
self-supporting  aesthetic  theory  which  turns  out  to 
bear  no  relation  whatever  to  the  facts. 

Mr.  Squire,  of  course,  began  as  an  analytical 
critic,  but  his  vivid  interest  in  technique,  his  learn- 
ing, and  an  admirable  faculty  for  parody  prevented 
his  floating  off  too  much  into  the  vague.     His  later 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS       IQI 

work  shows  him  getting  more  and  more  to  resemble 
writers  of  the  older  school.  I  personally  share  the 
view  of  a  good  many  of  his  readers  and  see  the 
change  with  regret,  but  on  the  other  hand  he  used 
the  modern  method  better — I  do  not  want  to  call  it 
the  analytical  method,  for  that  unduly  narrows  my 
meaning — and  carried  analysis  further  than  most 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  it  may  be  that  he  has 
good  reason  for  the  gradual  change  in  his  attitude. 
One  great  blessing  attends  Mr.  Squire.  He  writes 
amusingly.  His  remarkable  gift  for  parody  is, 
of  course,  a  great  asset  here,  enabling  him,  for 
example,  to  adorn  and  illustrate  his  remarks  with 
mock  examples.  How  will  Prohibition  affect  the 
poet.^  Mr.  Squire  sees  him  struggling  with  a  con- 
vivial song. 

*  Come,  chemist,  fill  the  silver  box 
With  morphia  or  with  ether. ' 

He  has  further  the  valuable  knack  of  conveying 
criticism  without  condemnation,  as  witness  the  fol* 
lowing  remarks  about  Mr.  Drinkwater's  '  Abraham 
Lincoln  '  : 

*  I  saw — at  least  I  thought  I  saw — all  sorts  of  defecta 
in  characterisation,  interpretation,  machinery ;  from  the 
absence  of  that  humour  which  always  clung-  about  the 
hero  to  the  fact  that  the  whole  seven  scenes  took  place 
indoors;  from  the  melodrama  of  Mr.  Hook  to  the  un- 
convincing and  overdone  pathos  of  the  condemned  sentry, 
who  was  so  handsome,  so  brave,  spoke  such  perfect  Eng-- 
lish,  and  had  committed  his  offence  under  such  extremely 
palliating  circumstances  that  it  was  unbelievable  that 
anyone  can  have  meant  to  execute  him.  But  the  fact 
remains  that  my  eyes  and  ears  were  glued  to  the  actors 
throughout;    that  in  places  I  was  profoundly  moved  j 


192       THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS 

that  I  was  as  sorry  when  Lincoln  was  shot  as  I  should 
have  been  had  I  been  present  at  the  event;  and  that  I 
went  away  saying-  that  not  even  the  ban  on  smoking 
would  keep  me  away  from  the  theatre  if  there  were  many 
plays  which  appealed  as  this  one  had  done  to  both  my 
intelligence  and  my  emotion.  There  is  no  poetry  about 
Mr.  Drinkwater*s  verse  choruses,  but  there  is  a  good 
deal  in  his  prose-play. 

*  He  partially  escapes,  in  fact,  the  radical  defects  of 
the  modern  theatre.  There  is  an  immense  amount  of  in- 
terest in  the  theatre.  Books  are  written  about  its  pos- 
sibilities; societies  are  founded  to  explore  and  exploit 
them ;  everyone  hopes  that  the  theatre  will  in  our  time 
be  as  g-ood  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Shakespeare  and 
Aeschylus ;  and  thousands  of  persons  with  intellects 
write  for  the  stage.  But  it  is  commonly  overlooked  that 
Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries,  like  Aeschylus  and 
his  contemporaries,  were  poets.' 

I  think  a  certain  quality  of  tolerance,  fairminded- 
ness  and  kind-heartedness,  combined  with  a  search- 
ing faculty  for  stripping  away  clap-trap,  are  the 
qualities  that  have  given  Mr.  Squire  his  unique 
position.  He  reigns  a  sort  of  king  in  Literary 
London,  because  he  knows  how  to  be  both  kind 
and  severe  to  young  writers.  He  is  willing  to  take 
infinite  trouble  over  work  submitted  to  him  and 
will  labour  with  the  author  to  improve  and  amend. 
Almost  every  young  author  who  comes  into  contact 
with  Mr.  Squire  feels  first,  that  he  must  put  his  best 
foot  foremost,  and  secondly  that  Mr.  Squire  still  has 
the  elasticity  to  give  him  appreciation. 

Mr.  Harold  Monro  has  all  the  qualities  of  head 
that  go  to  make  a  critic,  but  to  my  mind  few  of  the 
qualities  of  heart.  His  '  Contemporary  Poets  '  is 
practically  a  bitter  attack  upon  the  two  or  three 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS   I93 

dozen  poets  whose  work  he  criticises.  The  reader 
closes  the  book  with  the  impression  that  Miss 
Charlotte  Mew  is  the  only  modern  poet  worth 
reading,  an  impression  grotesque  enough  for  him 
to  be  sure  that  this  was  not  what  Mr.  Monro  in- 
tended. What  has  happened  apparently  is  that 
Mr.  Monro  has  taken  a  dislike  to  poetry  and  wishes 
that  people  would  stop  writing  it.  As  for  the 
Founder  of  the  Poetry  Bookshop's  indictment  of 
the  modern  poetical  coterie,  it  is  as  savage  as  it  is 
amusing. 

*  It  is  related  of  one  of  our  younger  poets  that  he 
declared  he  would  not  publish  a  First  Book  until  he 
knew  sixteen  critics  personally,  and  had  dined  with 
each.  .  .  .  Verse-writing  in  the  year  1920  is  a  profes- 
sional occupation.* 

Young  men  and  women,  he  goes  on,  enjoy  the 
practice  of  making  rhymes,  putting  down  their 
feelings  in  loose  sentences  which  they  call  '  free 
verse.'  Newspapers  and  magazines  have  a  large 
demand  for  such  work,  but  many  as  are  the  niches, 
the  competition  is  great,  and  so  the  young  poet's 
eye  must  ever  be  trained  on  the  main  chance.  His 
first  book  will  be  a  great  event.  It  does  not  matter 
whether  people  read  him  or  not,  but  at  least  twenty 
thousand  people  must  talk  about  him. 

Then,  as  soon  as  he  gets  to  know  a  few  people, 
he  must  talk  to  them  of  the  Great  Ones  whom  he 
does  not  know,  '  for  present  acquaintance  must  be 
the  stepping-stones  to  future  ones  ' : — 

*  He  must  learn  how  to  joke  cynically  about  the  Great, 
and,  if  obliged  to  admit  that  he  has  not  actually  met 
Mr.   H.,  Mr.  N.,  or  Sir  S.  G.,  must  be  able  to  imply 


194      THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS 

skilfully  that  he  will  probably  be  dining-  with  each  of 
them  next  week.  All  this  time,  however,  he  must  not 
cease  to  **  write  poetry.**  * 

He  must  attach  himself  to  some  group  which 
will  quickly  teach  him  to  talk  cleverly  about  modern 
painting,  and  books  which  he  has  not  read ;  also  it 
will  publish  a  periodical  or  anthology  in  which  his 
poems  will  be  printed.  His  position  must,  in  fact, 
be  made  before  the  verses  which  might  warrant  it 
have  been  written  ....  And  so  on  in  a  heartfelt 
satiric  vein.  However,  we  are  a  little  cheered 
when  we  read  at  the  end  of  the  book  that  Mr. 
Monro  considers  that  '  verse  is  undoubtedly  in^ 
ferior  to  prose  as  a  medium,  but  it  is  easier  to 
write.'     We  begin  to  see  daylight. 

If  he  feels  like  this  about  poets,  what  will  he 
have  to  say  about  fellow  critics  and  reviewers  ?  We 
feel  that  it  is  only  too  likely  that  he  is  going  to 
agree  with  Mr.  Flint,  whose  denunciation  of  my 
tribe  I  quoted  tremblingly  in  the  chapter  before 
last: 

*  As  for  the  professional  critics,  is  it,  I  wonder,  a 
revelation  to  anybody  that  in  the  majority  of  editorial 
offices  preference  is  given  to  books  whose  publishers  are 
advertisers  in  the  paper?  * 

Mr.  Harold  Monro  must  keep  uncommonly  bad 
journalistic  company.  The  Spectator,  whose  patient 
drudge  I  confess  myself,  is  surely  not  in  the  posi- 
tion of  lonely  virtue  that  Mr.  Monro's  words  would 
imply  ?  He  speaks  again  of  '  tired  critics,  some- 
times too  hungry  to  object  to  writing  what  they  are 
told,'   of   insipid   critics  who   have   '  two   or  three 


THE  VICES  AND   VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS      T^J 

hundred  cliche  phrases  at  their  command/  Every 
time  a  '  good  '  author  publishes  a  book, 

*  a  trained  person  has  merely  to  jot  down  a  series  of  the 
conventional  phrases  :  ** sustained  inspiration/'  ** finished 
craftsmanship/*  **  essential  quality  of  high  poetry,*' 
**  splendid  and  virile,'*  **  amongst  the  finest  achieve- 
ments of  our  age,**  **  sounds  depths  only  possible  to  a 
master,*'  **  never  been  surpassed,*'  **  noble,"  **  notable," 
*'  felicitous  " — ^we  all  know  them  so  well  that  we  do  not 
trouble  to  pay  the  slightest  attention  to  them." 

These  opinions  show  clearly  that  a  good  many  of 
Mr.  Monro's  generalisations  are  due  to  the  exag- 
geration of  exasperation.  I  also  examine  '  a  very 
large  proportion  of  current  books  of  poetry.'  The 
chief  difficulty  of  the  honest  critic  is  to  keep  his 
critical  head  above  water  and  not  to  be  submerged, 
or  rather  rolled  out  perfectly  flat  by  the  weight  of 
books  which  pour  on  top  of  him.  That  is  surely  the 
chief,  the  simple  reason  for  the  many  failures  and 
ineptitudes  ot  current  reviewing.  The  critic  may 
have  to  examine  sixty  or  seventy  poems  in  a  morn- 
ing, and  by  the  time  he  has  done  thirty  it  requires 
a  considerable  exercise  of  self-discipline  and  con- 
centration to  keep  the  critical  standard  flying,  not 
to  condemn  a  good  piece  of  work  because  it  con- 
tains one  or  two  atrocious  lines,  not  to  approve  a 
competent  poem  which  suffers  only  from  the  dis- 
ability of  having  no  reason  for  existing  at  all. .  As 
Mr.  Monro  himself  says,  the  honest  reviewer  is 
kept  up  to  his  task  by  the  one  thought  above  all 
others  : — 

*  Perhaps,  high  up  on  some  shelf,  neglected  by  the  re- 
viewers and  by  myself  (a  patient  searcher),  stands  that 


196      THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS 

ominous  volume,  a  Paradise  Lost,  or  Songs  of  InnocencCy 
or  Prometheus  Unbound  of  this  ag"e,  accumulating 
dust.' 

That  is  the  carrot. 

The  total  impression  of  the  book  is  one  of 
hostility.  Mr.  Monro  holds  it  a  scandal  and  shame 
that  there  are  so  many  bad  poets  and  so  many  bad 
reviewers.  Surely  his  attitude  should  be  one  of 
thankfulness  that  there  are  a  very  few  good  poets 
and  a  very  few  good  reviewers.  Poetasters  and 
puffers  are  not  a  unique  product  of  this  age  or  of 
this  country.  It  is  significant  that  Mr.  Monro  never 
praises  a  poet  for  being  readable,  seemingly  because 
he  dislikes  reading  poetry.  But  we  assure  him  that 
there  are  a  great  many  people — the  present  writer 
included — ^who  do  like  reading  poetry,  and  there- 
fore,  notwithstanding  any  holes  that  can  be  justly 
picked  in  them,  are  extremely  grateful  for  such 
poems  as  *  Daffodil  Fields,'  '  The  Queen  of  China/ 
and  '  The  Moon.'  Why  not  think  of  poetry  as  like 
cheese  or  apples,  as  being  something  necessary, 
instead  of  adopting  the  attitude  of  the  man  who  has 
given  five  shillings  for  a  cigar  .'^  However,  the 
book  is  tonic  to  the  system  as  well  as  bitter  to  the 
tongue.  It  will  be  splendid  reading  for  a  great 
many  of  the  poets  mentioned  in  it. 

Mr.  Monro  knows  what  poetry  ought  to  be  made 
of,  as  witness  the  following  passage  : — 

*  Accurate  observation,  close  inquiry,  a  respect  for 
detail;  selection,  condensation,  rejection  of  the  unneces- 
sary ;  choice  of  image,  phrase  or  rhythm ;  aesthetic 
honesty,  literary  candour,  local  truth,  psychological  ac- 
curacy;   prudent   management   of   rhyme,    economy   of 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS       I97 

epithet,  love  of  the  true  substantive,  pleasure  in  the  right 
verb;  imaginative  curiosity,  the  joy  of  new  philosophic 
discovery,  the  adventure  of  metaphysical  speculation, 
the  humility  or  courageous  ardour  of  religious  doubt, 
and  finally  toleration  for  these  qualities  or  attributes 
when  exemplified  in  his  contemporaries.  * 

But  to  me  this  most  true  and  excellent  summary 
is  spoilt  by  the  fact  that  all  these  qualities  are 
(typically)  enumerated  under  the  heading  ol  The 
qualities  which  Mr.  Alfred  Noyes  has  not  got. 
Now  I  hold  no  brief  for  Mr.  Alfred  Noyes,  and 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  do  not  from  time  to  time 
agree  with  Mr.  Monro's  opening  paragraph  about 
him  : 

*  Of  Alfred  Noyes  nothing  can  be  written  in  extenuation.* 

but  Mr.  Monro's  bitterness  defeats  its  own  object 
and  the  reader,  of  course,  begins  to  sympathise 
with  Mr.  Noyes. 

A  very  different  critic  is  Mrs.  Marguerite  Wilkin- 
son, an  American.  wShe,  like  Mr.  Sturge  Moore, 
never  mixes  up  criticism  and  controversy.  Her 
book  '  New  Voices  '  is  intended  as  a.  more  or  less 
elementary  introduction  to  modern  poetry.  It  is 
all  suavity  and  good  sense.  Mrs.  Wilkinson  can 
blame  without  being  severe,  can  see  faults  and 
virtues  in  the  same  set  of  verses,  and  is  an  admir- 
able analyst.  The  reader  will  find  an  extract  from 
her  book  in  the  chapter  on  Metre.  The  passage 
consists  of  some  observations  on  Miss  Amy  Lowell's 
'  Patterns,'  and  will,  I  think,  display  Mrs.  Wilkin- 
son's virtues  as  well  as  her  one  vice.  This  vice  is 
that  she  is  so  interested  in  technique,  she  under- 


1 98      THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS 

Stands  the  poets  she  is  criticising  so  well,  that  she 
is  apt  to  be  a  little  too  charitable,  and  in  the 
case  of  a  good  many  American  writers  she  is 
apt  to  take  the  will  Jor  the  deed,  and  to  treat 
mediocrity  with  a  respect  only  due  to  first-rate 
powers.  This,  of  course,  weakens  her  book.  But, 
as  I  have  said,  she  possesses  in  a  high  degree  the 
power  of  analysis;  she  really  knows  how  to  con- 
centrate on  a  poem  and  to  consider  it  under  several 
headings,  which  is,  as  anyone  who  has  tried  it 
knows,  as  difficult  as  trout-tickling.  She  also  pos- 
sesses the  faculty  for  putting  a  book  together  and 
knows  when  to  give  the  reader  ample  quotations 
and  to  allow  him  to  judge  for  himself. 

Mr.  Hueffer's  '  Thus  to  Revisit,'  though  it  is  not 
solely  concerned  with  poetry,  will  in  many  passages 
give  the  reader  a  very  good  idea  of  one  tendency 
of  modern  criticism.  Mr.  Hueffer  has,  of  course, 
a  considerable  acquaintance  with  French  and 
German  literature,  and  therefore  brings  back  to  the 
study  of  his  countrymen  very  useful  detached 
judgment.  I  think  that  the  main  lesson  he  has  to 
teach  English  writers  is  the  central  notion  of  the 
classical  writer — I  mean  consideration  for  the 
reader. 

Mr.  Robert  Graves  represents  perhaps  the  newest 
type  of  critic  of  all.  He  analyses,  but  he  is  also  a 
mystic,  and  to  my  mind  his  book  '  On  English 
Poetry '  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  and  suggestive 
critical  essays  that  has  ever  appeared.  Unlike 
many  poets,  he  writes  prose  delightfully,  and  his  all 
too  short  book  is  extraordinarily  readable. 


THE  VICES  AND  VIRTUES  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICS   I99 

It  suffers  perhaps  from  one  fault :  it  is  too  much 
a  series  of  hints,  and  too  little  a  sustained  state- 
ment, but  Mr.  Graves  himself  disarms  this  criticism 
by  saying  that  his  book  is  material  for  critics  to  work 
upon,  not  a  ready-made  criticism.  It  is  an  effort  to 
display  the  workings  of  a  poet's  mind,  rather  than 
the  exposition  of  a  critical  theory.  Really,  of 
course,  the  whole  standpoint  of  the  book,  the  mating 
of  criticism  to  psychology,  is  in  itself  a  contribution 
to  aesthetic  theory. 

No  one  interested  either  in  psychology  or  poetry 
ought  to  miss  Mr.  Graves'  book.  His  readers  will 
see  that  it  has  a  good  many  points  in  common  with 
the  present  work.  This,  is  in  most  cases  the  result 
of  coincidence,  but  in  the  case  of  certain  notions  in 
the  chapter  on  Symbolism  and  in  the  general  con- 
ception of  Metre  and  Rhythm  as  intellectual 
anodynes,  I  gratefully  own  myself  Mr.  Graves' 
debtor. 


Chapter  XX 
PARODIES,  SATIRES  AND  EPIGRAMS. 

I  WISH  that  a  course  of  good  parody  were  compul- 
sory for  aspirant  poets.  Parody  has  the  advantage 
over  criticism  that  all  art  has  over  didactics.  By 
reading  parodies  or  witnessing  Macbeth  a  dissatis- 
faction either  with  murders  or  cliches,  as  the  case 
may  be,  is  made  to  spring  within  the  breast  of  the 
would-be  poet  or  murderer.  The  preacher  and  the 
reviewer  only  apply  pressure  from  without  and  are 
generally  met  by  an  exactly  equivalent  internal  re- 
sistance. Luckily  we  have  a  very  flourishing 
modern  tradition  in  this  kind.  Not  all  the  vitu- 
peration in  the  world  could  deal  with  what  we  might 
call  the  '  Classical  Inadequate  School '  as  finally  as 
did  'J.B.M.,'  author  of  '  Georgeous  Poetry,'  in 
half-a-dozen  lines  : 

*  The  blackbird's  gay  November  song 
And  the  primroses  scattered  far 
Fill  all  the  sky  with  lutes  and  bells 
From  star  to  frosty  star. 
Beside  the  pond  the  pipit  cries, 
The  heather's  all  abloom, 
The  winter  sun  among  the  sedge 
Weaves  and  unweaves  its  loom.' 

Or  consider  Mr.  Squire  and  the  '  exquisite  '  son- 
net.    There  is  Time's  acolyte  palely  frustrating  the 

sunset. 

*  No  purple  mars  the  chalice ;   not  a  bird 
Shrills  o'er  the  solemn  silence  of  thy  fame.' 


PARODIES,    SATIRES    AND    EPIGRAMS  20I 

But,  of  course,  the  robuster  the  poet  the  more  ex- 
hilarating the  parody.  There  is  '  J.B.M/s  '  notion 
of — I  suppose — Mr.  Chesterton.  It  begins  like 
this  : 

*  Babies  have  such  little  toes, 
So  soft  and  pink  and  small  : 
**  Four  by  six,*'  said  the  master-plumber, 

And  I  worked  at  my  wall. 
Babies  have  such  innocent  ways, 

So  quiet  and  nice  and  sweet ; 
**  Get  that  pipe  laid  down  there,  'Arry," 

I  work  that  they  may  eat. 
Babies  and  I  will  be  dust  one'  day, 

What's  the  g-ood  of  it  all? 
**  One  yard  out,"  said  the  master-plumber, 
Leaning  against  the  wall.  * 

Then  there  are  Mr.  Vachel  Lindsay  and  Mr. 
Masefield.  Mr.  E.  V.  Knox  conceived  the  pleasant 
notion  of  writing  about  Lord  Northcliffe  first  in  the 
style  of  one  and  then  of  the  other. 

*  Old  Man  Alf  was  an  ink  proprietor ; 

His  voice  was  loud  and  never  grew  quieter; 

He  kept  rude  scribes  in  a  monstrous  den 

To  hammer  on  a  gong  at  Cabinet  men. 
Hark  to  Mail-horn,  rail-horn,,  sale-horn, 
Boomlay,  boomlay,  boomlay,  boomlay,  boom  ! 
Listen  to  the  Times-horn,  chimes-horn,  crimes-horn, 
Boomlay,  boomlay,  boomlay,  boomlay,  boom  ! 
Pom,  bing,  pom  ! 

(With  a  touch  of  **  Alexander's  Ragtime  Band  *').* 

Upon  which  the  parodist  turns  to  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
as  '  Daniel '  in  the  same  vein. 

The  huntsman,  Alfred,  rode  The  Mail, 
A  bright  bay  mount,  his  best  of  prancers, 
Out  of  Forget-me-not  by  Answers, 


202  PARODIES,    SATIRES   AND   EPIGRAMS 

A  thick-set  man  was  Alf,  and  hard, 
He  chewed  a  straw  from  the  stable-yard  : 
He  owned  a  chestnut,  The  Dispatch, 
With  one  white  sock,  and  one  white  patch ; 
He  bred  the  mare  called  Comic  Cuts  ; 
He  was  a  man  with  fearful  guts. 

So,  too,  was  Rothef,  the  first  whip, 
Nothing-  could  give  this  man  the  pip ; 
He  rode  The  Mirror,  a  raking  horse, 
A  piebald  full  of  points  and  force. 
All  that  was  best  in  English  life. 
All  that  appealed  to  man  or  wife, 
Sweet  peas  or  standard  bread  or  sales 
These  two  men  loved.    They  hated  Wales 

The  Lloyd  George  motive  is  again  heard,  this 
time  he  is,  of  course,  under  the  fox's  mask.  I  have 
quoted  this  Masefieldian  essay  because  it  provides 
an  instance  of  a  thing  which  not  uncommonly  hap- 
pens in  this  sort  of  writing.  Can  the  reader  see 
what  is  wrong  with  this  parody.'^  If  not,  here  is 
another  example  of  the  trouble,  also  by  Mr.  E.  V. 
Knox.  This  time  Mr.  de  la  Mare  is  to  be  paro- 
died : 

*  **  Won*t  you  look  out  for  your  Fleet,  Mr.  Bull?  ' 
Quoth  the  Navy,  nig-ging*,  nagging  in  the  papers : 
**  Can't  you  look  out  for  your  Fleet,  Mr.  Bull? '' 
Quoth  the  Navy,  shouting  madly  in  the  papers.* 

The  fact  is  that  in  neither  of  these  two  cases  has 
Mr.  Knox  written  a  parody  at  all.  The  poems  are 
really  both  of  them  direct  satires  about  English 
public  events,  and  not  indirect  comments  on  the 
style  of  two  poets.  The  poems  have  transmuted 
themselves.      The   centre   of   interest  has   shifted 


PARODIES,    SATIRES    AND    EPIGRAMS  203, 

from  manner  to   matter.       Not   but  what    Direct 
Satire  can  be  a  very  good  thing : 

*  Yet  let  me  flap  this  bug  with  gilded  wing's, 
This  painted  child  of  dirt,  that  stinks  and  stings  ; 
Whose  buzz  the  witty  and  the  fair  annoys, 
Yet  wit  ne'er  tastes,  and  beauty  ne*er  enjoys  : 
So  well-bred  spanielsi  civilly  delight 
In  mumbling  of  the  game  they  dare  not  bite. 
Eternal  smiles  his  emptiness  betray. 
As  shallow  streams  run  dimpling  all  the  way. 

His  wit  all'  see-saw,  between  that  and  this, 
Now  high,  now  low,  now  master  up,  now  miss, 
And  he  himself  one  vile  antithesis. 
Amphibious  thing  !  that  acting  either  part, 
The  trifling  head  or  the  corrupted  heart, 
Fop  at  the  toilet,  flatterer  at  the  board. 
Now  trips  a  lady,  and  now  struts  a  lord. 

Beauty  that  shocks  you,  parts  that  none  will  trust ; 
Wit  that  can  creep,  and  pride  that  licks  the  dust. ' 

It  is  rather  odd,  I  think,  that  the  present  age  does 
not  produce  more  and  better  verse  in  this  manner. 
Mr.  Kipling's  very  striking  '  Gahaizi '  and  Mr. 
Squire's  '  Survival  of  the  Fittest '  seem  almost  the 
only  successful  modern  poems  in  this  tradition. 
War  satires,  of  course,  we  have  had  in  plenty,  but 
these  I  count  as  too  impersonal  to  come  into  this 
category.  On  the  whole,  however,  perhaps  Indirect 
Ironical  Satire  is  a  better  weapon.  Consider,  for 
instance,  the  last  lines  of  the  '  Dunciad,'  when,  her 
speech  at  an  end  at  last,  the  Goddess  nods  : 

*  The  all-composing  hour 
Resistless  falls  :    the  Muse  dbeys  the  powV. 


204  PARODIES,    SATIRES   AND   EPIGRAMS 

She  comes  !  she  comes  !  the  sable  throne  behold 
Of  Night  primeval  and  of  Chaos  old  ! 
Before  her,  Fancy's  gilded  clouds  decay, 
And  all  its  varying  rainbows  die  away. 
Wit  shoots  in  vain  its  momentary  fires, 
The  meteor  drops,  and  in  a  flash  expires. 
As  one  by  one,  at  dread  Medea's  strain, 
The  sick'ning  stars  fade  off  th'  ethereal  plain; 

See  skulking  Truth  to  her  old  cavern  fled, 

Mountains  of  casuistry  heaped  o'er  her  head  ! 

Philosophy,  that  leaned  on  Heaven  before, 

Shrinks  to  her  second  cause,  and  is  no  more. 

Physic  of  Metaphysic  begs  defence, 

And  Metaphysic  calls  for  aid  on  sense  ! 

See  Mystery  to  Mathematics  fly  ! 

In  vain  !  they  gaze,  turn  giddy,  rave  and  die. 

Religion,  blushing  veils  her  sacred  fires, 

And  unawares  Morality  expires. 

For  public  flame,  nor  private,  dare  to  shine  ; 

Nor  human  spark  is  left,  nor  glimpse  divine  ! 

Lo :    thy  dread  empire.  Chaos  !    is  restored  ; 

Light  dies  before  thy  uncreating  word  ; 

Thy  hand,  great  Anarch  !    lets  the  curtain  fall; 

And  universal  darkness  buries  all. ' 

Again  here  the  present  age  has  not  so  far  done 
much.  Mr.  Augustine  Rivers  essayed  a  little  in 
the  Dunciad  vein  in  the  Sixth  Cycle  of  Wheels, 
calling  his  poem,  *  The  Death  of  Mercury.'  The 
goddesses  Dullness  and  Mediocrity  are  progressing 
slow  and  magnificent  to  their  thrones  : 

*  And  as,  in  state,  they  to  their  temple  go, 
They  hymn  **  Praise  Squire  from  whom  all  blessings  flow, 
Oh,  may  he  prosper  !     May  his  brood  increase, 
And  death  to  all  who  are  not  Dull  as  he  is  !  " 
Up  from  glad  Earth  the  chorus  swells  again, 
**  Praise  Squire,  Praise  Squire,"  we  hear  the  swift  refrain 


PARODIES,    SATIRES    AND    EPIGRAMS  20$ 

That  leaps  like  fire  from  every  school  and  college, 

From  stately  London  home  or  Cotswold  Cottage 

Wherever  poet  meets  a  poet  brother 

(Or  makes  an  income  by  reviewing  each  other.) 

The  echo  alters  to  **  We  never  tire 

Of  hearing  Squire  on  Shanks  and  Shanks  on  Squire.**  * 

The  goddesses  (pursues  the  satirist)  are  indeed 
merely  showing  a  proper  sense  of  gratitude.  For 
i  if  was  for  them  that  he  cast  aside,  'The  gift  of 
parody  his  only  art,'  for  them  that  in  secret  lair  he 
fashioned  *  the  gummy,  muddy  "  Lily  of  Malud."  ' 
He  and  his  *  foursquare '  henchmen.  Freeman, 
Turner,  Graves,  Shanks  and  '  reckless  '  Rickword, 
are  eternally  vowed  to  her  service — and  so  on. 
None  of  it  is  quite  as  well  polished,  either  in  point 
of  satire  or  of  versification,  as  it  ought  to  be.  For 
Messrs.  Turner  and  Graves  may  have  faults,  they 
might  be  accused  of  being  unduly  obscure,  mystic 
and  rhapsodical,  but  to  lump  them  all  together  as 
dull  reminds  us  of  the  angry  aimlessness  of  the 
banderlogue. 

The  fact  is,  that  when  we  turn  from  Parody  to 
Satire  we  are  too  often  obliged  to  turn  away  from 
humour.  I  am  not  going  here  to  attempt  to  define 
humour,  but  I  believe  with  Mr.  Robert  Graves,  that 
it  is  somehow  pretty  closely  allied  to  the  subcon- 
scious, mystical  element  in  aesthetics.  I  should 
fancy  that  humour  was,  in  fact,  like  the  arts,  a  chan- 
nel by  which  two  subconsciousnesses  were  able  to 
communicate.  In  nonsense  and  in  jokes  we  are 
often  aware  of  the  same  sort  of  sense  of  libera- 
tion and  pleasure  as  in  reading  good  poetry.  And 
that  is  why  I  think  that  the  more  amusing  and  the 


206  PARODIES,    SATIRES    AND    EPIGRAMS 

less  severe  Parody,  Satire  and  Epigram  can  re- 
main, the  nearer  they  are  to  poetry.  Savage, 
denunciatory  satire  should  stick  to  prose  forms. 
'  Gulliver's  Travels  '  would  have  lost  a  great  deal 
by  being  written  in  verse.  But,  of  course,  neither 
Parody  nor  Epigram  need  altogether  divorce  them- 
selves from  malice.  Only  the  jeu  (T esprit  should 
on  the  whole  leave  a  pleasant  flavour,  and  there 
should  remain  to  the  reader  a  slight  sense  of  adven- 
ture. 

*  Bees  and  epigrams  should 

If  they  are  not  to  fail 

Have  honey,  small  frames, 

And  a  sting  in  the  tail.  * 

Quite  pleasant  examples  of  this  classical  type  of 
epigram  are  to  be  found  among  the  works  of  Mr. 
C.  L.  Graves.  For  instance,  here  is  one  which 
depends  on  verbal  felicity  : 

*  The  grocer  who  has  made  his  pile 
Does  he  grow  nicer?    No,  sir. 

He  does  not  change  his  heart  or  style, 
And  grows  a  grosser  grocer.  * 

Mr.  Graves'  work  is,  of  course,  in  direct  descent 
from  the  excellent  school  of  epigram  that  flourished 
in  Oxford  about  forty  years  ago  and  included  so 
vast  a  literature  on  Mr.  Jowett.  I  have  always 
liked  the  verse  about  the  pathetic  Don  who — un- 
willingly— helped  Jowett  with  an  immense  transla- 
tion : 

#  *  Oh,  I  say  !     I  once  was  Forbes, 

Now  the^  Master  me  absorbs 
Me  and  many  other  me*s 
In  his  vast  Thucydides.  * 


PARODIES,    SATIRES    AND    EPIGRAMS  20/ 

But  there  are  Gothic  as  well  as  Classic  epigrams. 
And  in  their  wild  fashion  they  are  quite  as  difficult 
to  write  : 

*  Edward  the  Confessor 
Slept  under  the  dresiser, 
When  that  began  to  pall 
He  slept  in  the  hall. ' 

That  is  perhaps  the  archetypal  Gothic  epigram. 
Now  observe  a  classic  mind  struggling  to  use  the 
form  : 

*  The  Emperor  Nero 
Was  not  a  Christian  Hero 
He  used  Communicants 
As  illuminants. '» 

Brilliant,  but  too  intellectual !  It  lacks  abandon 
and  reminds  the  reader  of  the  river  front  of  the 
Houses  of  Parliament. 

But  with  the  Gothic  epigram  the  reader  will  per- 
ceive that  we  have  almost  got  round  to  poetry  again. 
Our  actual  way  of  return  would,  of  course,  be  via 
Nursery  Rhymes,  Edward  Lear  and  Messrs. 
Robert  Graves  and  Walter  de  la  Mare. 

Will  the  reader  allow  me  two  more  modern  in- 
stances of  the  art  of  Parody;  the  first  is  by  Ezra 
Pound  and  mocks  generally  at  the  grandiloquents  : 

*  When  I  behold  how  black,  immortal  ink 
Drips  from  my  deathless  pen — ah,  well-away  ! 
Why  should  we  stop  at  all  for  what  I  think  ? 
There  is  enough  in  what  I  chance  to  say. ' 

The  second  is  another  of  Mr.  Knox's  efforts.  It 
is  from  a  poem  called  '  Glamour.'  I  beg  the  reader 
to  turn  to  the  end  of  the  book  where,  under  Mr. 


208  PARODIES,    SATIRES   AND   EPIGRAMS 

W.  J.  Turner's  name,  he  will  find  quotations  from 

the  original,  '  Paris  and  Helen/ 

*  Hug^e  was  the  hall,  and  principally  made 
Of  porphyry,  alabaster,  bronze  and  jade, 
And  noteworthy  for  its  large  dining--room. 
Paris,  a  guest  within  the  oblonged  gloom, 
Where  all  the  cups  were  carved  with  cold  pure  shapes 
Of  boys  and  maidens  eating  unripe  grapes. 
Gazed  upon  Helen.    All  Troy's  hope  was  pawned 
In  that  one  love-look.     Menelaus  yawned.' 

And  those  who  are  familiar  with  Mr.  Turner's 
poem  will  enjoy  another  couplet : 

*  Hoary  with  age  and  antique  with  old  Time 
The  walls  of  Troy  stood  difficult  to  climb. ' 

Nor  shall  we  like  it  the  less  because  by  it  we  are  re- 
minded of  a  really  admirable  passage  in  the  original. 
Did  anyone  ever  enjoy  his  Wordsworth  or  a 
ballad  the  less  because  of  Canning  or  Calverley.^ 
It  is  a  great  thing  that  the  new  school  of  poetry 
should  have  bred  so  likely  a  school  of  parody. 
No  Government  can  exist  without  an  Opposition. 
Poets  fall  into  absurdities  unless  they  are  criticised, 
and  of  all  criticism  parody  is  probably  the  most 
effective  and  the  least  offensive.  It  is  like  the  par- 
able in  the  world  of  ethics — it  does  not  rouse  a 
spirit  of  opposition  in  the  individual  criticised. 
The  study  it  shows  of  the  poet's  work  even  turns 
it  into  a  kind  of  wry  compliment.  A  poet  can 
accept  its  hints  without  loss  of  amour-propre.  Many 
of  us  dislike  being  told  that  we  are  getting  fat,  but 
few  of  us  are  so  ill-tempered  that  we  should  frown 
at  the  distorting  glass  that  tells  us  so  with  disarm- 
ing exaggeration. 


PART  V 

(FOR  READERS) 


SHORT  STUDIES   OF   SOME 
MODERN   POETS 

D.  H.  LAWRENCE 

In  Mr.  Lawrence  the  novelist,  and  still  more  the 
philosopher,  was  always  inclined  to  shoulder  out  the 
poet.  Of  late  the  poet  had  seemed  entirely  ousted, 
but  in  a  poem  which  appeared  in  The  Mercury  in 
the  Autumn  of  1921,  called  'The  Snake,'  he  re- 
asserted himself.  Mr.  Lawrence  has  had  consider- 
able influence  upon  other  modern  writers,  and  it  is 
therefore  not  uninteresting  to  try  and  estimate  his 
contribution  to  modern  lyrical  poetry. 

In  reading  Mr.  Lawrence's  poems  we  shall 
probably  in  the  first  place  be  struck  by  their  vigour. 
The  emotional  stress  is  often  tremendous.  We  feel 
that  the  content  is  always  bursting  out  of  the  skin 
of  the  poem.  The  inspiration  was  apparently,  as  a 
rule,  too  white-hot  to  submit  to  the  bonds  of  a 
regular  metre.  Often  there  was  not  even  time  for 
any  symbolism.  The  poem  is  a  naked,  direct  state- 
ment. Take  the  following,  'Lot's  Wife.'  It  seems 
devoid  of  every  quality  that  we  expect  in  verse, 
except  emotion,  and  yet  who  can  deny  it  the  title  of 
poetry  ? 

I  have  seen  it,  felt  it  in  my  mouth,  my  throat,  my  chest, 
my  belly, 


212       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

Burning  of  powerful  salt,  burning,  eating  through  my  defence- 
less nakedness, 

I  have  been  thrust  into  white  sharp  crystals, 

Writhing,  twisting,  superpenetrated. 

Ah,  Lot's  wife.  Lot's  wife  ! 

The  pillar  of  salt,  the  whirling,  horrible  column  of  salt,  like 
a  waterspout 

That  has  envelo{>ed  me  ! 

This  directness  often  gives  to  the  poems  a  curious 
flavour  that  we  associate  with  very  different  pro- 
ductions— Mr.  Waley's  exquisite  translations  from 
the  Chinese.  They  have  the  same  naked  simpli- 
city, but  the  Chinese  poets  have  come  to  it  not  from 
stress  and  agony  of  emotion,  but  from  niceness  and 
satiety,  and  a  taste  purged  and  refined  through  the 
centuries. 

What  do  we  have  to  pay  for  this  tensity,  this 
veritable  vibration,  in  Mr.  Lawrence.^  As  we 
should  expect,  his  poems,  or  rather  his  mental 
attitude,  seem  to  be  without  sense  of  proportion. 

He  is,  of  course,  a  psychologist  of  great  merit, 
but  when  we  find  him  in  the  sickroom  of  suffering 
humanity,  his  role  seems  to  be  that  of  the  patient 
rather  than  that  of  the  physician  or  the  enquiring 
scientist.  But  before  we  condemn  his  methods  of 
expression,  we  must  remember  how  difficult  are  the 
things  which  he  is  trying  to  express  and  how 
tremendous  to  him  is  their  emotional  stress.  Sex 
is  a  subject  upon  which  few  of  us — Councillor  Clark 
or  Mr.  Lawrence — can  write  calmly.  Mr.  Lawrence 
is  struggling  so  hard  to  give  utterance  to  some  burn- 
ing emotion  that  his  verse  often  becomes  tortured 
and  harsh — a  contortion  rather  than  a  poem.     The 


D.   H.   LAWRENCE  213 

more  violent  the  emotion  of  which  he  writes,  the 
more  we  are  conscious  of  a  febrile  quality  in  the 
verse.  He  can  never  stand  back  from  his  passion. 
Therefore  we  often  find  that  his  most  passionate 
love  poetry,  remarkable  as  it  is,  is  so  feverish  as  to 
be  pathology,  not  literature.  We  have  perhaps  been 
moved  and  duly  caught  into  the  swing  of  the  poet's 
mood,  and  then  Mr.  Lawrence  allows  his  high  tem- 
perature to  get  the  better  of  him,  and  lets  himself 
slip  into  what  is  something  very  near  to  delirium — 
too  near,  at  any  rate,  to  be  expressed  in  half  a  dozen 
lines.  I  wonder  if  he  would  be  able  to  say  what 
he  wanted  in  an  epic  or  a  poetic  drama?  It  is  not 
impossible.  As  it  is  we  find  the  paradox  that  Mr. 
Lawrence  often  writes  best  upon  what  are  to  him 
emphatically  secondary  subjects.  Two  poems  about 
children  in  Amores,  for  instance,  are  extraordinarily 
beautiful  and  well  observed,  especially  perhaps  the 
one  which  begins. — 

*  When  the  bare  feet  of  the  baby  beat  across  the  gfrass 
The  little  white  feet  nod  like  white  flowers  in  the  wind,  * 

and  which  ends. — 

*  I  long-  for  the  baby  to  wander  hither  to  me 
Like  a  wind-shadow  wandering  over  the  water. 
So  that  she  can  stand  on  my  knee 
With  her  little  bare  feet  in  my  hands, 
Cool  like  syringfa  buds, 
Firm  and  silken  like  pink  youngf  peony  flowers.* 

'  The  Snake  '  not  only  contains  fine  lines  but  is 
most  effective  as  a  whole. 

But  whatever  may  be  Mr.  Lawrence's  faults,  this 
poem  of  the  baby  illustrates  his  chief  virtue.  He  is 
rarely    negligible.      His    poems    have    an    intense 


214       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

objective  existence.  To  borrow  a  most  repulsive 
expression  from  the  jargon  of  the  stage,  they  are 
always  *  strong/  There  appears  to  be  no  civilised 
expression  which  gives  the  notion  conveyed  by  the 
phrase, '  Punch  back  of  it/  And  yet  this  is  a  quality 
of  which  we  are  particularly  conscious  in  poetry. 
There  are  delightful  poets  whose  works  are  singu- 
larly wraith-like.  Their  poems  may  be  admirable 
and  charming,  but  we  feel  that  they  are  akin  to 
Herrick's  daffodils  and  fade  away  so  fast  that  we 
must  use  a  sort  of  cunning  in  relation  to  them — 
must  stalk  them.  Per  contra,  there  are  poems  which 
we  may  like  much  less;  they  are  often  dull  or 
unsubtle,  for  instance,  but  which  are  irrevocable. 
This  vigorous  life  belongs,  in  a  high  degree,  to  Mr. 
Lawrences  poetry.  It  is  this  lesson  of  strength 
that  he  has  to  impart  to  younger  writers. 


ROBERT  GRAVES 

I  AM  not  going  to  say  very  much  in  this  book  about 
Mr.  Robert  Graves  as  a  poet.  There  are  two  Mr. 
Robert  Graves',  and  they  now  both  stand  revealed 
in  his  books.  When  I  say  that  there  are  two,  I 
merely  mean  that  you  can  like  his  poetry  for  its 
under  or  its  upper  meaning.  You  can  like  the 
work  of  the  writer  of  nursery  rhymes  with  a  sneak- 
ing or  a  patronising  affection,  as  you  prefer ;  or  you 
can  be  repelled  or  attracted  by  the  mystic  and  the 
prophet  and  the  impish,  fantastic  humourist.  For 
Mr.  Graves'  real  character  I  must  refer  the  reader 


ROBERT   GRAVES  21$ 

to  '  The  Pier  Glass,'  '  Country  Sentiment/  and  the 
book  to  which  the  present  volume  owes  so  much, 
'  On  English  Poetry.' 

I  propose  to  say  nothing  of  his  real  attitude 
towards  poetry,  an  attitude  with  which  I  am  in 
fundamental,  indeed  almost  in  detailed  agreement. 
This  attitude  is  more  accurately  shown  in  the  texture 
of  this  book  where  it  is  displayed  in  many  of  its 
applications,  than  it  would  be  possible  to  express 
it  in  a  sentence  or  two.  There  is  only  one  piece  of 
advice  that  I  should  give  to  the  reader,  and  that  is 
(contrary  to  the  wise  procedure  with  most  poets), 
to  read  Mr.  Graves'  theory  before  his  practice. 
This  because,  like  other  writers,  he  has  published 
a  good  many  bad  poems.  He  has  not  alvv^ays 
realised  in  writing  and  publishing  his  verse  the 
cases  in  which  an  individual  poem  proved  to  have  a 
leak,  where  the  mystical  contents  which  he  put  into 
it  has  run  away,  and  only  appears  to  him  to  be  still 
there  because  he  know^s  he  put  it  there.  Now  a 
reader  looking  for  beauty  easily  '  spots '  an  ugly 
poem — a  failure — but  to  look  in  a  perfectly  dark 
room  for  a  symbolical  black  cat  which  isn't  there  is 
proverbially  disillusioning.  Then  he  is  occasionally 
obscure,  giving  us  enough  plot  to  distract  us  from 
the  writing,  but  making  that  plot  indecipherably 
involved  and  fantastic.  An  example  to  my  mind  of 
this  sort  of  failure  is  '  The  Gnat.'  I  got  that  poem 
expounded  to  me  by  Mr.  Graves,  and  when  you  are 
given  a  clue,  you  find  it  is  far  from  being  the  un- 
satisfactory affair  that  the  unaided  reader  is  likely 
to  find  it.    But  there  it  stands  in  '  The  Pier  Glass  ' 


2l6       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

anexplained,  and,  I  honestly  believe  to  most  people, 
incomprehensible. 

But  Mr.  Graves  does  not  often  fail,  for  he  is  a 
very  good  poet  indeed.  I  should  like  to  quote  to 
the  reader  '  Black  Horse  Lane  '  as  an  excellent  and 
typical  example  of  Mr.  Graves'  genius.  Here  we 
have  the  top  meaning  of  nursery  rhyme,  and  the 
fantastic  under-meaning  bringing  with  it  wide  impli- 
cations,— ^generalising  the  message  of  the  poet  as 
only  works  of  art  which  employ  the  symbolic  method 
can.  Dame  Jane  is  a  music  mistress  and  Sharkie  is 
the  baker.  One  day  a  fiddle  tunes  up,  Starkie 
catches  up  Jane  and  they  fly  out  of  the  lane  '  like 
swallows.'  But  nobody  knew  what  he  said  to  her, 
nobody  saw  how  she  looked. 


No  neighbooir  heard 
One  sigh  or  one  word, 
Not  a  sound  but  the  fiddling*  in  Black  Horse  Lane, 
The  happy  noise  of  music — 
Again  and  again. 

Where  now  be  those  two  old  'uns, 

be  those  two  old   *uns, 
Sharkie  the  baker  run  off  with  Jane? 

Hark  ye  up  to  Flint  Street, 

Halloo  to  Pepper-Mint  Street, 
Follow  by  the  fells  to  the  great  North  Plain, 

By  the  fells  and  the  river — 

To  the  cold  North  Plain. 

How  came  this  passion  to  them, 

this  passion  to  them, 
Love  in  a  freshet  on  Blackl  Horse  Lane? 

It  came  without  warning 

One  blue  windy  morning 


STURGE   MOORE  21 J 

So  they  scarcely  might  know  was  it  joy  or  pain, 
With  scarce  breath  to  wonder — 
Was  it  joy  or  pain. 

Took  they  no  fardels  with  them, 

no  fardels  with  them. 
Out  and  alone  on  the  ice-bound  plain? 

Sharkie  he  had  rockets 

And  crackers  in  his  pockets, 
Ay,  and  she  had  a  plaid  shawl  to  keep  off  the  rain. 

An  old  Hig-hland  plaid  shawl — 

To  keep  off  the  rain.* 

When  you  have  read  Mr.  Graves'  critical  book, 
then  patronise  that  poem  if  you  still  dare.  But 
indeed  only  the  pedant  would  desire  to  do  that. 
There  is  something  as  fresh  and  disarming  in  Mr. 
Graves'  fantasy  as  there  is  profound  in  his 
psychology. 


STURGE  MOORE. 

To  me  Mr.  Sturge  Moore  is  a  source  of  perennial 
interest  as  being  an  endless  experimentor  in  form. 
His  resource  in  this  one  respect  seems  infinite. 

The  amphibious  form,  the  book,  which  is  written 
half  in  verse,  half  in  prose,  is  one  with  which  he 
is  always  toying.  It  is  always  an  attractive  form 
to  the  writer,  though  most  poets  are,  not  unwisely, 
afraid  of  its  too  great  freedom.  By  employing 
this  style  the  poet  can  suit  his  form  to  the  several 
parts  of  his  theme.  He  has  a  sense  of  the  elas- 
ticity of  a  mixed  medium.  But  I  am  not  quite 
sure  if  such  a  mixture  is  often  a  success  from  the 
reader's  point  of  view.       The  Pilgrim's  Progress 


2l8       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

gains  immensely  by  the  careful  skipping  of  its  for- 
tunately infrequent  verse.  Alfred's  Boethius  is 
little  adorned  by  its  metrical  portions.  Sir  James  ^ 
Barrie's  The  Tmth  about  the  Russian  Dancers — ■! 
half  play,  half  ballet — proved  dramatic  cross-breds 
to  be  not  less  difficult  creatures  to  manage  than 
literary  amphibians.  There  are  conventions  in  our 
enjoyment  of  every  art.  Convention  prevents  our 
even  desiring  to  encircle  with  a  finger  the  pillars  in 
a  Claude.  We  feel  no  disappointment  because  we 
cannot  satisfy  toucTi.  But  let  parts  of  a  landscape 
be  modelled  in  high  relief  and  the  flat  portions 
which  are  left  will  annoy  us. 

We  do  not  resent,  we  scarcely  apprehend,  as  un- 
natural, the  metric  speech  of  the  characters  in  a  nar- 
rative poem.  But  let  some  of  the  persons  speak  in 
prose  and  we  are  critical  where  we  should  have 
acquiesced.  So  perhaps  it  comes  about  that  the 
reader  has  a  feeling  that  he  is  not  being  quite  fair 
to  the  scholarly  spirit  and  many  beauties  of  Mr. 
Sturge  Moore's  The  Powers  of  the  Air,  For  not 
only  is  The  Powers  of  the  Air  half  in  verse  and 
half  in  prose,  but  it  is  half  image  and  half  argument. 
It  is  a  Socratic  dialogue  in  which  the  scene — light, 
shade,  colour,  gesture,  sound  and  scent —  is  as  pro- 
minent as  the  exposition  of  general  principles.  The 
visualization  is  excellent,  the  dialogue  well  knit, 
even  if  the  argument  is  not  very  masculine;  the 
characterization  is  clear,  the  verse  generally  melo- 
dious, the  prose  often  beautiful.  The  ensemble  is 
interesting  without  for  a  moment  touching  the  heart 
or  the  imagination.     The  effects  are  somehow  dis- 


STURGE   MOORE  219 

sipated.  We  trip  over  the  several  conventions.  In 
another  volume,  '  Danae  and  Blind  Thamyris,*  he 
tells  the  story  of  Charon's  '  select  academy  for  the 
sons  of  heroes.'  It  is  pleasing,  but  I  for  one  do  not 
feel  that  Mr.  Moore  has  even  here  proved  that  verse 
and  decorative  prose  can  make  up  a  whole.  But 
this  is  only  one  of  Mr.  Moore's  formal  experiments. 
In  another  volume,  '  Tragic  Mothers,'  '  Three  short 
plays  for  chamber  presentation,'  he  makes  a  gallant 
effort  to  write  a  drama  for  '  three  voices  heard  be- 
hind a  screen.'  It  begins  well,  but  Niobi's  long 
soliloquy  would  probably  be  intensely  dull  from  an 
invisible  speaker  with  no  help  of  gesture. 

But  Mr.  Sturge  Moore  has  the  merits  of  his  de- 
fects. If  his  work  occasionally  drops  into  listless- 
ness,  it  does  not  descend  further  into  inadequacy. 
It  is  mellow  and  reflective,  and  is  always  easy^ 
agreeable  reading.  He  has  a  pretty  eye  for  colour,, 
for  landscape,  and  an  understanding  of  one  aspect 
of  the  female  mind.  With  his  mildness  he  always 
retains  a  certain  scholarly  distinction — he  does  not, 
in  Jenny  Pearl's  phrase,  become  '  soppy.'  He  has 
a  mind  which  in  many  ways  resembles  that  of  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  only  he  is  without  much  of  the  Vic- 
torian's irritation  at  a  world  full  of  vulgar  num- 
skulls. 

The  dedication  of  a  narrative  poem,  '  Afore- 
time,' to  Mr.  Gordon  Bottomley  gives  a  capital  pic- 
ture of  a  mellow  and  reflective  mind  at  work 
fashioning  verses  with  a  sort  of  cool  affection  : 

*  Dear  exile  from  the  hurrying-  crowd, 
At  work  I  muse  to  you  aloud ; 


220      SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

Thought  on  my  anvil  softens,  glows, 

And  I  forget  our  art  has  foes  ; 

For  life,  the  mother  of  beauty,  seems 

A  joyous  sleep  with  waking  dreams. 

Then  the  toy  armoury  of  the  brain 

Opining,  judging,  looks  as  vain 

As  trowels  silver  gilt  for  use 

Of  mayors  and  kings,  who  have  to  lay 

Foundation  stones  in  hope  they  may 

Be  honoured  for  walls  others  build. 

I,  in  amicable  muse. 

With  fathomless  wonder  only  filled. 

Whisper  over  to  your  ear 

Listening  two  hundred  odd  miles  north, 

And  give  thought  chase  that,  were  you  here, 

Our  talk  would  never  run  to  earth. ' 

Perhaps  he  is  at  his  best  when,  as  in  Danae,  he  is 
turning  a  sometimes  lewd  old  story  to  '  favour  and 
to  prettiness.'     To  borrow  his  own  words, 

*  Leaves  wet  with  dew  in  lettuce-hearts  confined, 
Are  not  more  dainty  or  more  clear  of  hue.  * 

Such  is  this  tale.  Perhaps  the  best  thing  he  ever 
wrote  is  another  play  from  'Tragic  Mothers,'  called 
^  Medea.'  I  am  not  quite  sure  of  its  absolute  merit, 
part  of  its  attraction  to  me  being  its  ingenuity. 

'A  curtain  bearer  and  two  curtain  folders'  play  the 
ingeniously  conceived  parts  of  mediums  at  a  seance 
and  Chorus.  Medea  has  sacrificed  her  two  sons  to 
appease  Artemis,  who  was  wroth  at  her  broken  vow 
of  chastity.  She  hunts  once  more  in  the  train  of  the 
goddess,  but  is  haunted  by  the  thought  of  the  two 
boys  for  whose  forgiveness  she  longs.  She  invokes 
them,  and  they  speak  to  her  through  the  lips  of  the 
entranced  chorus.     She  begs  them  to  understand 


STURGE   MOORE  221 

her  deed.  She  killed  them  that  they  might  escape 
bondage,  but  her  heart  is  torn  at  the  thought  of  her 
cruelty.  The  voices  are  silent,  and  she  fears  that 
grief  or  anger  keeps  them  so.  But  she  has  for- 
gotten that  they  are  children.  They  are  playing^ 
hide-and-seek  : 

' Mermeros  : 

I  said  :    **  Novv  we  must  hide,'*  but  Pheres  said  : 
**  She  cannot  see  us,  there's  no  need  to  hide.'' 
Then  I  said  :    **  Hide  from  hearing,  hide  in  silence, 
We'll  not  be  found  there  till  she  makes  us  laugh." 
Pheres  : 

That's  the  new  hide-and-seek  we  play  at  now. 

Medea  (incredulously)  : 

But  are  you  really  there?     You  move  about? 

Both  Boys  : 

Yes,  we  are  here,  and  run  and  leap  and  laugh. 

Medea  (kneeling  on  one  knee  and  holding  out  her  arms)  :: 
Come,  I  have  much  to  whisper,  heart  to  heart. 

Mermeros  : 

What  a  beautiful  bow  you've  got. 

Pheres  :  Bend  it,  mother. 

Medea  : 

I  want  your  pardon,  you  can  only  give  it 

When  you  shall  know  how  cruel  were  the  wrongs  .  .  .. 

Both  Boys  (interrupting)  : 
Shoot,  mother,  shoot.' 

Again  she  tries  to  ease  her  heavy  conscience,  but 
only  succeeds  in  making  the  children  cry,  and  when 
she  desists,  hopeless,  they  tell  her  how  the  rabbits 
do  not  fear  them  now.  They  talk  of  childish 
things  and  break  her  heart  afresh.  Well  played,^ 
the  little  scene  might  be  extremely  poignant. 


222       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 


GORDON  BOTTOMLEY. 

Mr.  Gordon  Bottomley  is  the  only  serious  Eng- 
lish  exponent  of  the  verse  drama,  and  in  his  best 
productions  he  follows  the  lead  neither  of  Maeter- 
linck, nor  of  the  Irish  school.  There  is  always  a 
danger  in  the  Maeterlincken  drama  of  the  sort  of 
thing  that  Mr.  Squire  parodies  so  attractively  (in 
*  Collected  Parodies  '). 

*  From  the  forest  on  the  left  SIX  OLD  MEN  enter. 
The  five  of  them  are  blind  and  deaf  and  dumb,  but  the 
sixth  is  not  dumb.  He  is  only  blind  and  deaf.  They 
walk  very  slowly  and  stumbling-ly.  The  first  feels  his 
way  with  his  staff.  The  others  also  feel  their  ways  with 
their  staffs,  tripping^  over  sticks  and  dead  leaves  as  they 

The  '  Belgian  Shakespeare  '  has  much  to  answer 
for. 

In  bad  examples  of  the  Celtic  school  we  get 
another  sort  of  absurdity,  a  kind  of  stark,  tremend- 
ous heroism  all  about  nothing,  and  both  schools  are 
apt  to  suffer  from  that  besetting  trouble  of  the 
poetic  drama — a  lack  of  vigour.  Mr.  Gordon  Bot- 
tomley has  his  faults,  but  in  two  or  three  plays  he 
has  avoided  these  pitfalls.  The  best  of  his  dramas 
have  a  strength  and  a  vigour  which  is  immediately 
striking  to  the  reader,  and — in  the  only  one  that  I 
have  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  acted,  '  King  Lear's 
Wife  ' — these  qualities  were  equally  apparent  to  a 
theatre  audience. 

Two  of  Mr.  Bottomley's  plays  are  concerned 
with  the  past  of  Shakespearian  characters — '  King 


GORDON   BOTTOMLEY  223 

Lear's  Wife  '  and  '  Grauch.'  King  Lear  is  shown 
us  as  a  still  vigorous,  middle-aged  man;  his  wife 
is  dying. 

In  M.  Komisarjevsky's  production  of  the  play  a 
great  bed  was  mounted  on  a  platform,  its  head 
against  the  back  of  the  stage,  and  six  or  eight  steps 
on  the  three  sides  led  up  to  this  couch.  It  was  an 
admirable  symbolic  device.  The  queen,  isolated 
and  alone,  yet  dominates  the  situation.  The  King 
has  fallen  in  love  with  one  of  her  young  waiting 
women  who  should  be  nursing  her.  But  Lear  is 
always  luring  the  willing  Gormflaith  from  her  sleep- 
ing mistress.  The  Queen  does  not  quite  know 
what  is  going  on,  but  she  suspects,  and  we  are  given 
a  wonderful  picture  of  her  despair  largely  through 
the  mouth  of  the  doctor  who  attends  her. 

*  Physician  :  We  cannot  die  wholly  against  our  wills ; 
And  in  the  texture  of  women  I  havei  found 
Harder  determination  than  in  men  : 
The  body  grows  impatient  of  enduring, 
The  harried  mind  is  from  the  body  estranged, 
And  we  consent  to  go  :    by  the  Queen's  touch. 
The  way  she  moves — or  does  not  move — in  bed. 
The  eyes  so  cold  and  keen  in  her  white  mask, 
I^  know  she  has  consented. ' 

The    characters    of    the    two    elder    daughters, 

Goneril  and  Regan,  are  also  admirably  portrayed. 

Goneril  draws  her  ov/n  portrait  at  length  for  us — 

cold,  pure,  ruthless — and  then  shows  us  the  sordid 

Regan : 

*  I  dreamt  that  I  was  swimming,  shoulder  up. 
And  drave  the  bedclothes  spreading  to  the  floor : 
Coldness  awoke  me ;    through  the  waning  darkness 
I  heard  far  hounds  give  shivering  aery  tongue, 


224       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

Remote,  withdrawing,  suddenly  faint  and  near, 
I  leapt  and  saw  a  pack  of  stretching-  weasels 
Hunt  a  pale  coney  in  a  soundless  rush. 
Their  elfin  and  thin  yelping  pierced  my  heart 
As  with  an  unseen  beauty  long  awaited ; 
Wolf-skin  and  cloak  I  buckled  over  this  night-gear,. 
And  took  my  honoured  spear  from  my  bed-side 
Where  none  but  I  may  touch  its  purity,  ' 
And  sped  as  lightly  down  the  dewy  bank 
As  any  mothy  owl  that  hunts  quick  mice. 
They  went  crying,  crying,  but  I  lost  them 
Before  I  stept,  with  the  first  tips  of  light. 
On  Raven  Crag  near  by  the  Druid  Stones  .  .  .' 

*  Does  Regan  worship  anywhere  at  dawn? 
The  sweaty  half-clad  cook-maids  render  lard 
Out  in  the  scullery,  after  pig-killing. 
And  Regan  sidles  among  their  greasy  skirts, 
Smeary  and  hot  as  they,  for  craps  to  suck. 
I  lost  my  thoughts  before  the  giant  Stones  .   .  . 
And  when  anew  the  earth;  assembled  round  me 
I  swung  out  on  the  heath  and  woke  a  hare 
And  speared  it  at  a  cast  and  shouldered  it.  * 

But  Mr.  Bottomley  has  his  faults.  We  can  see 
them  large  in  '  Midsummer  Eve.'  Stage  direc- 
tions matter  very  much  in  a  poetic  drama.  It  is 
difficult  to  lay  down  rules  for  their  proper  conceiv- 
ing. Such  plays,  it  must  be  remembered,  are 
intended  both  to  be  read  and  acted.  But  has  the 
poet  clearly  envisaged  either  group  of  his  disciples 
in  the  following? 

*  All  is  soundless  again  save  for  the  cow's  moaning. 
The  twilight  deepens  no  farther,  and  presently  its  dead 
gold  brownness  becomes  cooler  in  tone ;  the  mist  which 
had  been  merged  in  the  nightfalFs  dimness,  imper- 
ceptibly becomes  apparent  again,  being  suffused  by  an 


GORDON   BOTTOMLEY  225 

oozing-  of  silveriness  through  the  pervading  brownness ; 
moon-rise  is  evident,  although  the  moon  is  hidden  by 
the  permeating^  mist  which  it  fills.  Perhaps  a  crying  of 
bats  is  heard,  but  this  is  not  certain.  An  owl  cries  some- 
where— probably  from  one  of  the  gable-holes,  for  it 
sounds  both  inside  and  outside  at  once ;  after  many  ten- 
tative Tu-whits  it  launches  a  full  Tu-whoo  and  swings 
out  far  and  low  across  the  valley  :  a  chirping  of  frogs 
begins  in  the  nearest  ditches.   .   .   . ' 

The  rest  is  obviously  legitimate,  for  it  consists 
of  directions  as  to  the  position  of  the  characters. 
But  in  the  above  passage,  what  purpose  is  achieved 
or  intended.^  It  is  surely  neither  a  hint  on  inter- 
pretation to  the  actors,  a  guide  to  the  proper  man- 
agement of  the  limes  and  the  conduct  of  the  '  pro- 
perty '  bats,  nor  is  it  a  piece  of  prose  whose  cadence 
is  to  vary  the  blank  verse  for  the  reader. 

However,  we  very  rarely  find  Mr.  Gordon  Bot- 
tomley  '  talking  through  his  hat '  like  this ;  his  plays 
are  usually  models  of  economy  and  restraint. 

'  Grauch,'  like  '  King  Lear's  Wife,'  is  an  attempt 
to  reconstruct  the  past  of  one  of  Shakespeare's 
characters. 

This  time  he  has  chosen  Lady  Macbeth.  She  is 
a  girl  and  is  to  be  married  (because  her  lands  march 
with  his)  to  the  oafish  but  good-natured  Thane  of 
Fortingall,  the  owner  of  '  a  small,  black  stone  castle 
in  the  north  of  Scotland.'  It  is  the  eve  of  her 
wedding  to  this  bridegroom,  whose  state  and  char- 
acter she  views  with  equal  contempt.  The  scene 
opens  with  the  wedding  preparations,  a  device 
which  automatically  answers  the  reader's  question, 
'  Why  should  she  marry  him  unless  she  chose  ?  ' 


226       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

by  showing  the  reiterated  pressure  of  minor  com- 
monplace events  on  the  strongest  character. 

The  question  of  whether  Grauch  shall  marry  the 
Thane  of  Fortingall  is  completely  buried  under  the 
question  of  how  many  guests  are  to  be  expected, 
who  is  to  skin  the  rabbits  and  pluck. the  game  for 
the  wedding  feast,  and  how  the  embroidery  of 
Grauch's  wedding-dress  is  to  be  finished  in  time. 
All  this  is  true.  Who  does  not  know  in  everyday 
life  the  extraordinary  power  of  the  lesser  to  contain 
the  greater.^ 

Exhausted  by  these  small  cares,  the  family  are 
just  gomg  to  bed 'when  the  King's  envoy,  on  his 
way  to  Inverness,  knocks  and  demands  stable  and 
lodging.  It  is  the  young  Macbeth.  The  envoy 
and  to-morrow's  bride  fall  immediately  in  love  with 
one  another,  and  in  another  sleep-walking  scene  this 
love  is  declared.  Almost  at  once  the  girl,  though 
she  is  never  the  mature,  assured  woman  that  Shake- 
speare drew,  begins  to  dominate  the  fiery  but  im- 
pressionable Macbeth.  He  carries  her  off  with 
him,  and  her  last  act  is  to  make  him  swear  that  one 
day  he  will  come  back  and  burn  the  home  that  has 
sheltered  her  in  revenge  for  the  fact  that  here  her 
will  was  nearly  bent  to  that  of  others. 

In  '  Britain's  Daughter '  Mr.  Bottomley  partly 
re-tells  the  story  of  Trojan  Women,  except  that 
here  the  moral  is  not  quite  so  plain  as  is  Euripides'. 
The  Britons  under  their  Queen,  the  mother  of  the 
heroine,  '  Nest,'  have  risen  against  the  Roman  rule. 
Nest  is  an  eaglet,  a  true  primitive  fighter  with  the 
clear  code  of  the  warrior  and  the  fierce  virginal 


GORDON   BOTTOMLEY  227 

character  of  Mr.  Bottomley's  Goneril,  but  she  is 
ennobled  by  a  real  patriotic  flame.  Of  the  miseries 
which  this  patriotism  has  brought  about,  the  '  com- 
mon people  '  in  the  play  complain.  There  are  the 
childless  old  women,  the  girls  driven  off  as  a  prey 
to  the  soldiers,  the  starving  children,  the  spitted 
babies  of  Troy  and  of  Belgium  and  of  Russia.  As 
in  '  Trojan  Women,'  the  stage  is  during  a  great 
part  of  the  action  illuminated  by  the  light  of  burn- 
ing dwellings. 

Psychologically  the  merit  of  the  play  is  that  it 
shows  us  how  the  primitive  virtues  almost  inevit- 
ably bring  this  sort  of  thing  about. 

The  play  is  full  of  life  and  interest.  Mr.  Bot- 
tomley  cares  both  for  subtle  psychological  states 
and  the  most  primitive  sensations  of  bodily  wants. 
Compare  these  two  passages,  which  in  the  play 
follow  almost  immediately  upon  one  another  : 

*  The  Second  Woman  : 

The  cold  strikes  through  my  shoes  ;  even  on  the  sands 
The  rime  is  thick.     The  rime  will  settle  on  us, 
The  frost  will  reach  our  bone-pith  before  dawn  comes. 
I  shall  have  a  stiff  stomach  for  a  week. 

*  The  Third  Woman  : 

You  should  have  brought  two*  cloaks. 

*  The  Second  Woman  : 

My  house  is  full  of  drunken  Roman  men 

Who  throw  their  arms  around  my  empty  mead-vat. 

*  The  First  Woman  : 

At  the  top  of  the  street  I  passed  a  dead  woman 
Wearing  good  clothes.     I  pared  off  her  skirt  and  leg- 
cloths, 
And  donned  them  over  my  own.  .   .   .* 


228       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

Madron  is  one  of  Nest's  subjects,  goaded  by  his 
miseries  into  abuse  of  the  young  captive  Queen  and 
an  attack  upon  her  as  she  stands  bound  to  a  post  by 
the  quayside.     She  has  defied  him  : 
*  Madron  : 

I  have  not  seen  such  mettle  in  a  girl, 
My  lasses  are  flinchers  and  wheedlers  and  all  for  them- 
selves. 
Delicate  meats,  soft  clothing-  and  warm  fur. 
The  eagerness  of  hunting,  and  gold  that  frees 
From  long  toil  and  subservience,  seemi  to  breed 
A  generous  and  daring  of  spirit 
That  more  might  share  if  more  were  favoured  so. 
Maiden,  the  keenness  of  your  soul  can  hurt, 
Though  not  your  pride  of  state,  not  your  steeled  mind  : 
Life  is  fair  and  an  opening  wonder  in  you  : 
I  will  not  touch  you ;    I  will  serve  life  in  you, 
Though  not  your  state,  if  you  will  tell  your  need.   ...  * 

I  think  that  we  should  place  the  two  dramas  in 
'  Grauch  '  and  '  Britain's  DaugTiter '  after  '  King 
Lear's  Wife,'  but  before  '  The  Riding  to  Lithend ' 
and  '  Midsummer  Eve.' 

Has  the  reader  observed  from  the  extracts  I  have 
given  how  carefully  he  has  been  spared  any  mono- 
tony in  the  run  of  the  metre.  How  well  Mr.  Bot- 
tomley  has  diversified  his  blank  verse.  His 
metrical  devices  are  never  obtrusive,  but  almost  in- 
variably effective.  I  am  not  sure  if  Mr.  Bottom- 
ley's  work  (excepting  '  King  Lear's  Wife ')  has 
great  monumental  value  in  itself.  (Whether  it  will 
be  read  in  twenty  years'  time,  for  example.)  I  do, 
however,  think  that  it  has  great  interest  for  his  con- 
temporaries as  marking  a  definite  stage  in  the  eluci- 
dation  of  the   problems  presented  by  the   poetic 


GORDON   BOTTOMLEY  229 

drama.  His  work  is  valuable  not  only  for  its  posi- 
tive merits,  but  as  a  standing  proof  that  it  is  possible 
in  poetic  drama  to  avoid  the  chief  faults  of  the 
Irish  and  Maeterlinckian  schools.  Mr.  Squire  has 
pointed  out  that  essentially  what  Maeterlinck  did 
was  to  in,vent  a  dramatic  version  of  the  '  Fin  de 
Steele '  lyric.  The  Irish  school  have  something 
of  the  same  taking  tricks  of  method,  the  same 
triviality  of  matter.  Both  are  rather  oppressed  by 
the  solution  of  problems  of  technique  and  grow  self- 
conscious  in  the  performance  of  what  they  feel  to 
be  acrobatic  feats.  Mr.  Bottomley  seems  to  take 
the  writing  of  poetic  drama  quite  naturally  as  a 
perfectly  obvious  form  of  human  activity. 

A  careful  study  of  his  work  will  save  the  young 
dramatist  from  a  great  many  errors  and  absurdities. 


W.  J.  TURNER. 

Most  of  Mr.  Turner's  shorter  pieces  have  a  cer- 
tain quality  which  it  is  difficult  to  name.  To  me 
they  recall  the  image  of  a  black  opal.  This  simile 
suggests  itself  pat^tly,  because  he  does  actually 
often  describe  dark,  sombre  colours  and  burning 
glowing  lights,  and  partly  because  there  is  often  the 
same  quality  of  fire  in  the  poems  themselves,  a 
quality  at  once  elusive  and  a  little  menacing.  All 
the  clear,  everyday  gaiety  and  charm  of  which  Mr. 
Turner  is  capable,  he  seems  to  have  put  entirely 
on  one  side,  and  when  he  chooses  to  give  it  to  the 


230   SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

public,  he  gives  it  unadulterated  by  '  The  Dark 
Fire  '  of  his  shorter  pieces. 

I  am  not  quite  sure  that  the  definite  separation 
between  his  two  styles  is  a  good  thing.  '  Paris  and 
Helen  '  is  sometimes  so  clear  as  to  produce  an  effect 
of  shallowness  while  the  less  successful  of  the  short 
pieces  are  occasionally  tortured  and  incomprehen- 
sible. At  his  best,  however,  Mr.  Turner  can  make 
a  success  of  both  methods. 

'  Paris  and  Helen '  has  one  quality  which  I  for 
one  esteem  highly  in  a  narrative  poem.  It  is 
agreeable  and  easy  to  read.  The  versification 
carries  you  along  like  the  easy  current  of  a  stream. 
I  have  one  grievance  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  poem. 
The  reader  is  scarcely  allowed  a  glimpse  of  the 
affair  of  the  apple.  It  is  very  disappointing,  as 
we  had  hoped  for  a  fine  set  piece  from  Mr.  Turner. 
However,  we  are  partly  consoled  by  a  capital 
thunderstorm,  during  which  two  messengers  come 
up  from  Troy  to  tell  Paris  that  he  is  wanted.  Their 
dark  cloaks  flap  in  the  yellow  light  of  the  great 
storm  clouds.  The  ship  and  the  fatal  voyage  which 
take  Paris  to  Greece  are  shown  with  an  admirably 
contrived  sense  of  enchantment  and  mystery  about 
them.  The  ship  has  'a  painted  Amor'  carved  on 
her  prow  which  is  caressed  by  the  '  sea-wandering 
airs  ' — a  truly  Homeric  epithet. 

When  it  comes  to  Helen  herself,  we  are  again 
treated  shabbily  as  in  the  matter  of  the  Judgment. 
'  The  face  that  launched  a  thousand  ships '  is 
scarcely  described  :  we  see  only  her  '  wild,  calm 
beauty'  as  it  is  mirrored  in  the  eyes  of  the  men 


W.   J.   TURNER  231 

who  gaze  at  her.  But  perhaps  the  best  thing  in  the 
book  is  the  description  of  Troy  set  in  its  ramparts, 
when  Paris  brings  back  his  paramour.  There  stand 
the  huge  outer  walls  of  Troy,  '  like  some  sublime 
sea-wrack  ' : — 

*  Enormous  ag-e  has  smoothed  her  stones  away, 
And  the  soft,  giant  hands  of  Night  and  Day 
Have  crumbled  mountain  dust  upon  her  walls.* 

Then  Priam  and  his  lords  sitting  in  council  are 
described:—  ^  Not  a  sound 

Disturbed  the  solemn,  century-laden  air.' 

The  Council  Hall  is  magnificent  and  barbaric 
with  '  the  spoils  of  ancient  wars,'  and  the  old  lords 
are  on  their  seats  of  gold  : — 

*  Who  sat  bejewelled  grasping  their  jewelled  swords.* 

At  last  the  doors  are  flung  open  : — 

*  There  stood  Prince  Paris  with  his  heavenly  bride. 
Upon  King  Priam  and  those  silent  lords 

Then  fell  the  glance  that  drew  ten  thousand  swards 
To  flash  on  Ilion.     Slowly  in  that  blaze 
The  Phrygian  Princes  rose.* 

The  end  of  the  story  is  told  in  the  same  sort  of 
way;  all  is  made  fair  and  mystical,  a  scene  out  of  a 
huge  languid  drama. 

What  could  be  in  greater  contrast  to  these  large 
clear  prospects  than  a  poem  like  '  The  Caves  of 
Auvergne.'  Primitive  man  back  from  the  wars 
carves  with  a  sort  of  sombre  exultation  images  of 
deer  and  bull  on  the  smooth  walls  of  the  cave. 

*  The  stars  flew  by  the  cave's;  wide  open  door, 
The  clouds  wild  trumpets  blew, 


232       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

Trees  rose  in  wild  dreams  from  the  floor, 
Flowers  with  dream  faces  grew 

Up  to  the  sky,  and  softly  hung 
Golden  and  white  and  blue. 


The  red  deer  of  the  forest  dark, 

Whose  antlers  cut  the  sky, 
That  vanishes  into  the  mirk 

And  like  a  dream  flits  by, 
And  by  an  arrow  slain  at  last 

Is  but  the  wind's  dark  body. 

The  bull  that  stands  in  marshy  lakes 

As  motionless  and  still 
As  a  dark  rock  butting  from  a  plain 

Without  a  tree  or  hill ; 
The  bull  that  is  the  sign  of  life. 

Its  sombre,  phallic  will. 

And  from  the  dead,  white  eyes  of  them 

The  wind  springs  up  anew. 
It  blows  upon  the  trembling  heart, 

And  bull  and  deer  renew 
Their  flitting  life  in  the  dim  past 

When  that  dead  Hunter  drew. 

I  sit  beside  him  in  the  night. 

And,  fingering  his  red  stone, 
I  chase  through  endless  forests  dark 

Seeking  that  thing  unknown, 
That  which  is  not  red  deer  or  bull, 

But  which  by  them  was  shown  : 

By  those  stiff  shapes  in  which  he  dfew 

His  souPs  exalted  cry. 
When  flying  down  the  forest  dark 

He  slew  and  knew  not  why, 
When  he  was  filled  with  song,  and  strength 

Flowed  to  him  from  the  sky. ' 


W.  J.   TURNER  233 

Another  highly  characteristic  poem  is  'Contem- 
plation of  Life/  The  poet  perceives  in  a  vision 
that  though  life  is  mortal,  yet  Love  is  even  more 
the  prey  of  Death  and  has  a  shorter  span. 

'  Upon  a  scene  of  endless  transformation 
I  gazed  unhappy,  rivers  came  and  faded, 
Drag-ging  a  momentary  brightness  from  the  clouds 
Into  the  monochrome  of  walling  seas 
Which  leapt  and  fell  with  steady  oscillation, 
And  in  the  crystal  of  eternity 
Hung  with  a  quivering  wave-like  repetition 
The  trees  and  mountains  and  the  hollow  valleys 
With  towns  and  peoples  and  a  few  fearful  places 
Where  the  soul  hunted  had  leapt  up  and  printed 
On  rock  or  tree  or  sheeted  falling  water 
The  sudden  bright  and  diamond  burning  visage.* 

Mr.  Turner  is,  I  hope,  only  at  the  beginning  of 
his  poetical  career.  It  will  be  interesting  to  see  if 
he  ever  amalgamates  the  two  sides  of  his  work — 
'  Paris  and  Helen  '  and  the  black  opal.  I  feel 
pretty  hopeful  that  he  will  continue  the  mystical 
side  of  his  work.  It  would  be  a  great  loss  to 
modern  poetry  if  he  did  not.  The  reader  cannot 
help  fancying  that  he  has  a  good  deal  still  to  say. 


VACHEL  LINDSAY. 

If  ever  there  was  a  poet  who  even  in  these  sophis- 
ticated days  needed  an  interpreter,  that  poet  is  Mr. 
Vachel  Lindsay.  His  mission  is  to  take  poetry  out 
of  the  library;  his  poems  are  written  for  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  Plain  Man.  In  America,  where  the 
Plain  Man  has  less  definite  views  of  the  proper 


234       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

habitat  of  poetry,  it  is  immensely  enjoyed.  Pos- 
sibly, unless  its  nature  is  a  little  explained,  the 
Plain  Man  in  England  may  regard  it  as  not  so 
much  emancipated  from  the  library  as  escaped  from 
the  menagerie. 

But  I  don't  think  that  when  we  come  to  consider 
his  poems  in  detail  we  shall  find  them  unduly 
alarming,  unless  we  are  over-obsessed  by  ideas 
about  the  dignity  of  literature,  and  we  have 
forgotten  Bacchus  and  Dionysus  and  our  child- 
hood. It  is  a  pity  to  let  the  reading  of  Mr. 
Vachel  Lindsay's  poems  make  us  feel  scared  and 
prim.  For  once,  before  the  years  had  made  us  shy, 
there  was  a  time  when,  in  the  right  mood,  we  should 
have  revelled  in  them — over  the  fire  of  an  evening, 
or  dabbling  bare  feet  in  a  rock  pool  at  the  seaside. 
Then  their  high  spirits,  their  enthusiasm,  their  'guts 
and  glow,'  would  have  intoxicated  us  as  they  are 
meant  to.  Mr.  Vachel  Lindsay  is  a  poet  who  speaks 
to  our  moods  of  freedom,  to  moods  when  we  are 
away  from  hostile  criticism,  when,  most  of  all,  we  are 
away  from  the  odious  spoil-sport  who  lives  within 
us  all,  and  whose  acid  '  You  are  making  a  fool  of 
yourself  has  made  drab  the  lives  of  some  of  us 
for  good  and  all.  Those  who  have  had  the  good 
fortune  to  hear  Mr.  Vachel  Lindsay  recite  '  The 
Congo'  will  realise  how  much  for  its  proper  enjoy- 
ment it  demands  a  certain  abandon,  an  '  out  of 
school '  feeling,  which  for  the  self-conscious  is  only 
obtained  in  solitude  or  in  carefully  chosen  society : 

*  Fat  black  bucks  in  a  wine-barrel  room, 
Barrel-house  kingfs,  with  feet  unstable, 


VACHEL   LINDSAY  235 

Sagged  and  reeled  and  pounded  on  the  table, 

Pounded  on  the  table, 

Beat  an  empty  barrel  with  the  handle  of  a  broom, 

Hard)  as  they  were  able. 

Boom,  boom,   BOOM,, 

With  a  silk  umbrella  and  the  handle  of  a  broom, 

Boomlay,  boomlay,  boomlay,  BOOM. 

THEN  I  had  religion,  THEN  I  had  a  vision. 

I  co'uld  not  turn  from  their  revel  in  derision. 

THEN  I  SAW  THE  CONGO,  CREEPING  THROUGH 

THE  BLACK, 
CUTTING     THROUGH     THE     FOREST     WITH     A 

GOLDEN  TRACK. 
Then  along  that  riverbank 
A  thousand  miles 
Tattooed  cannibals  danced  in  files  ; 
Then  I  heard  the  boom  of  the  blood-lust  song 
And  a  thigh-bone  beating  on  a  tin-pan  gong.  * 

There  was  no  doubt  that  if  the  listener  accepted 
Mr.  Vachel  Lindsay's  mood,  his  use  of  the  grotesque 
and  the  uncanny,  there  was  something  extraordin- 
arily stirring  and  impressive  about  this  passage  as 
he  chanted  it.  These  opening  lines  are  followed 
by  an  enlargement  of  the  uncanny  motif : — 

*  Death  is  an  Elephant, 
Torch-eyed  and  horrible. 
Foam-flanked  and  terrible.' 

Death  is  the  servant  of  Mumbo-Jumbo,  the  ghost- 
god  of  the  Congo, — Mumbo-Jumbo,  god  of  secret 
and  bloody  rites.  Then  the  mood  of  the  poem 
changes,  and  at  once  we  are  confronted  with  the 
negroes  in  wild,  childish  high  spirits.  A  '  Negro 
Fairyland'  swings  into  view,  where  an  ebony  palace 
is  guarded  by  a  baboon  butler,  and  the  cake-walk 
princes    laugh    down    the    witch    men    who    have 


236       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME  MODERN  POETS 

threatened  them  with  the  dark  terrors  of  Mumbo- 
Jumbo  : — 

'  Just  then  from  the  doorway,  as  fat  as  shotes, 
Came  the  cake-walk  princes  in  their  long  red  coats, 
Canes  with  a  brilliant  lacquer  shine, 
And  tall  silk  hats  that  were  red  asi  wine. 
And  they  pranced  with  their  butterfly  partners  there. 
Coal-black  maidens  with  pearls  in  their  hair ; 
Knee-skirts  trimmed  with  the  jessamine  sweet, 
And  bells  on  their  ankles  and  little  black  feet. ' 

They  walk  for  a  cake  that  is  tall  as  a  man, 
defiant  of  the  witch  men  who  finally  are  unable  to 
resist  the  laughter  and  nonsense.  But  there  is 
another  side  of  the  negro  character.  As  a  revivalist 
he  can  outdo  Moody,  Sankey,  and  General  Booth. 
The  old  preacher 

'  Beat  on  the  Bible  till  he  wore  it  out 
Starting"  the  jubilee  revival  shout.' 

All  along  the  valley  of  the  Congo  sweeps  the 
cleansing  fire  of  Christianity,  sweeping  over  '  the 
vine-snared  trees,'  and  the  triumphant  hymn  goes  : 

*  Mumbo-Jumbo  will  die)  in  the  jungle  ; 
Never  again  will  he=  hoo-doo  you. 
Never  again  will  he  hoo»-doo  you.' 


*  Redeemed  were  the  forests,  the  beasts  and  the  men. 
And  only  the  vulture  dared  again 
By  the  far,  lone  mountains  of  the  moon 
To  cry  in  the  silence,  the  Congo  tune  : — 
**  Mumbo-Jumbo'  will  hoo-doo  you, 
Mumbo-Jumbo  will  hoo-doo  you. 
Mumbo  .  .  .  Jumbo  .  .  .  will  .  .  .  hoo-doo  .  .  .  you.'*  * 

The  last  lines  are  almost  whispered. 


VACHEL  LINDSAY  237 

When  Mr.  Vachel  Lindsay  repeats  this  poem 
himself  it  has  a  swing,  a  pageantry,  and  a  glamour 
which  are  remarkable. 

In  nothing  does  Mr.  Lindsay  need  the  services 
of  the  critic  more  than  in  the  matter  of  his  stage 
directions.  These  are  to  be  understood  only  by 
those  to  whom  he  has  explained  his  theories  of 
recitation,  or  rather  as  he  prefers  to  call  them,  his 
'habits.'  When  he  recites  he  half  sings  and  half 
speaks.  The  spoken  parts  are  given  with  the 
orator's  swing  in  a  rhetorical  passage;  sometimes 
the  swing  is  exaggerated  till  he  is  chanting.  Now 
and  then  a  lyrical  piece  will  be  crooned  or  sung 
to  a  simple  musical  tune  of  a  few  notes.  All  this 
may  sound  absurd,  but  I  have  had  proof  of  this 
pudding  and  it  is  admirable.  The  method  is  all 
based  on  this  theory :  Mr.  Lindsay  thinks  that 
poetry  has  lost  a  good  deal  by  being  written  chiefly 
for  the  eye.  On  the  other  hand,  he  does  not  want 
to  go  back  to  the  setting  of  poems  to  music,  as  he 
considers  at  the  present  day  western  music,  even 
that  written  for  the  voice,  has  become  so  mathe- 
matical with  its  scales,  tones  and  semi-tones,  that 
it  is  too  elaborate  to  be  used  merely  to  enhance  the 
effect  of  the  written  word.  There  is  another  music 
of  a  more  primitive  kind  which  is  much  more  to 
his  purpose — that  is,  the  music  of  the  alphabet.  A 
good  French  or  English  Actor,  M.  Coquelin  or  Mr. 
Henry  Ainley,  for  instance,  creates  for  any  indi- 
vidual piece  of  blank  verse  or  Alexandrine  that  he 
may  be  speaking,  a  beautiful  pattern  of  sound, 
something  which  is  almost  a  tune;    something  to 


238       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME  MODERN  POETS 

which  it  is  a  pleasure  for  a  foreigner  to  listen  even 
if  he  cannot  understand  the  words.  This  is  the 
music  which  Mr.  Lindsay  seeks  to  develop,  and  it 
is  with  the  accompaniment  of  a  fairly  elaborate 
voice  pattern  that  his  verse  must  be  judged.  The 
reader  may  object  that  it  is  no  new  thing  to  say  that 
verse  should  be  read  aloud ;  this,  of  course,  is  per- 
fectly true,  but  actually  in  practice  both  Mr.  Lind- 
say's writing  and  delivery  carry  the  process  of  good 
dramatic  diction  a  little  further.  For  instance,  in 
the  matter  of  writing,  in  each  poem  there  are  pas- 
sages almost  purely  rhetorical,  written  in  order  that 
the  speaker  of  them,  the  pattern-maker,  may  be  able 
to  convey  a  sense  of,  say,  tranquillity  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  swift  motion.  For  instance  in  'The 
Santa-Fe  Trail  '  the  poet  gives  us  a  picture  of  a  day 
spent  under  the  arched  sky  of  the  wide  Kansas 
Plain;  he  desires  to  give  the  reader  a  sense  of  the 
racing  motor  : — 

'  Butting  through  the  delicate  mists  of  the  morning, 
It  comes  like  lightning,  goes  past  roaring  ' — 

of  the  cars  which  stream  all  day  out  of  the  East 
towards  the  brown  sea-sands  of  the  Pacific  coast : — 

*  Ho'  for  the  tear-horn,,  scare-horn,  darenhofn, 
Ho  for  the  ^ay-horn,  barfe-horn,  hay-horn. 
Ho  for  the  Kansas,  land  that  restores  us 
When  houses  choke  us,  and  great  hooks  hore  us  •' 
Sunrise  Kansas,  harvester's  Kansas, 
A  inillion  men  have  found  you  hefore  us.^ 

The  first  lines  of  this  are,  of  course,  simply  syllables 
which,  when  properly  spoken,  will  give  a  sense  of 


VACHEL   LINDSAY  239 

swiftness  and  hurry.     In  their  place  they  are  effec- 
tive and  graphic. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  notice  the  effect  of  Mr. 
Lindsay's  poems  on  the  poetically  unsophisticated. 
They  prove  a  delight  to  the  perfectly  natural 
person  or  to  the  child.  The  mixture  of  humour, 
nonsense,  and  rhetoric,  the  high  spirits,  the  go  of 
them,  act  like  wine  when  the  listener  is  entirely  un- 
selfconscious  and  unprejudiced.  It  is  for  the  un- 
self  conscious  and  unprejudiced  that  they  are 
intended.  Perhaps  Mr.  Vachel  Lindsay  is  one  of 
the  first  people  to  do  really  good  aesthetic  work 
which  is  intended  for  'natural  man.'  It  is  not  here 
a  question  of  'writing  down,'  of  words  in  one  syl- 
lable, it  is  a  question  of  appealing,  as  does  Edward 
Lear's  nonsense,  to  our  simplest  aesthetic  tastes — 
the  tastes  which  all  of  us  share,  but  which  have 
hitherto  generally  been  appealed  to  so  badly  and  so 
shabbily,  that  even  the  simple  have  been  rather 
ashamed  to  acknowledge  them  and  the  sophisticated 
have  suppressed  them  altogether  as  unworthy.  It 
was  not  the  tastes  that  were  unworthy,  it  was  the 
stuff  that  was  provided  for  their  satisfaction.  Nor 
is  the  question  of  this  satisfaction  an  academic  or 
even  a  literary  one;  it  is  one  which  probably  has 
more  to  do  with  human  happiness  than  is  as  yet 
well  understood. 


240       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 


MISS  EDITH  AND  MESSRS.  OSBERT 
AND  SACHEVERELL  SITWELL 

If  you  go  to  see  the  glass-blowers  of  Murano  they 
will  sometimes  give  you  little  twisted  blowings  of 
glass  that  are  like  dolls  or  toy  dogs.  You  used 
before  the  war  to  be  able  to  buy  this  sort  of  toy, 
made  a  little  more  elaborately,  in  old-fashioned 
toyshops.  They  ended  in  a  sort  of  spiral  bit  at 
ankles  and  wrists,  they  were  very  smooth,  very 
bright  in  colour,  very  small  and  very  brittle. 

To  the  reader  who  comes  unprepared  upon  the 
works  of  the  Sitwell  family  the  poems  in  '  Wheels,' 
'  the  Wooden  Pegasus,'  and  'People's  Palace'  will 
seem  to  bear  a  strong  resemblance  to  these  dolls. 
For  Messrs.  Osbert  and  Sacheverell  and  Miss  Edith 
Sitwell  possess,  besides  the  tastes  and  aims  of  more 
normal  people,  a  genuinely  fantastic  imagination. 

Those  who  dislike  their  poetry  accuse  them  of 
being  affected,  they  say  that  their  oddity  is  nothing 
but  a  pose,  that  they  are  so  effete  that  they  can  no 
longer  enjoy  the  simple  things  of  the  world,  and 
must  have  passed  through  a  stage  of  mental  de- 
bauchery thus  to  return  to  the  childishness  of  a 
premature  senility.  All  this  sounds  very  plausible 
if  we  only  read  the  parodies  of  their  poems.  It  is 
easy  and  amusing  to  imitate  their  work,  and  we  shall 
find  successful  imitations  of  their  style  in  almost  all 
the  books  of  parodies  that  have  appeared  since  the 


THE  SITWELLS  24 1 

war.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  explanation  of  their 
peculiarities  is  very  much  simpler  than  that.  They 
possess,  all  three  of  them,  unnaturally  sharp  sense 
perceptions  and  a  habit  of  mind  which  is  common 
with  those  who  have  such  abnormally  good  eyes  and 
ears.  We  see  the  same  thing  in  Miss  Dorothy 
Richardson's  work.  For  purposes  of  expression, 
they  translate  sounds  into  sights  and  sights  into 
sounds.  Let  me  give  a  simple  example,  a  frozen 
frost-rimed  blade  of  grass  is  obviously  a  stiff ;  tense 
thing.  Now  tenseness  translated  into  terms  of 
sound  would  give  the  idea  of  high-pitch,  and  this  is 
the  mental  process — not  sheer  devilry  as  some  of 
her  critics  would  hold — that  makes  Miss  Sitwell  in 
one  of  her  poems  speak  of  a  blade  of  grass  in  the 
cold  being  '  shrill.'  Further,  as  a  family,  they 
know  a  good  deal  about  pictures,  both  ancient  and 
modern,  and  so  are  very  used  to  seeing  the  world 
through  the  eyes  of  a  Tiepolo,  a  Paul  Veronese, 
an  El  Greco,  a  Nevinson  or  an  Ingres.  This 
familiarity  with  the  visual  arts  has  very  much  in- 
creased what  must  be  a  natural  tendency  in  them,  a 
tendency  to  generalise  what  they  see, — to  see  in 
patterns.  Further  a  taste  for  satire  and  humour 
which  is  common  to  them  makes  them  often  see 
exceedingly  funny  patterns. 

Here  is  a  description  of  a  piece  of  coast  near 
Monte  Carlo,  by  Mr.  Osbert  Sitwell : — 

*  Above  from  plaster-mountains, 
Wine-shadowed  by  the  sea, 
Spurt  white-wool  clouds,  as  fountains 
Whirl  from  a  rockery. 


242       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME  MODERN  POETS 

Through  porous  leaves  the  sun  drops 

Each  dripping  stalactite 
Of  green.     The  chiselled  tree-tops 

Seem  cut  from  malachite. 

Stiff  lea,ves  with  ragged  edges 

(Each  one  a  wooden  sword) 
Are  carved  to  prickly  hedges, 

On  which,  with  one  accord 

Their  clockwork  songs  of  calf-love 

Stout  birds  stop  to  recite, 
From  cages  which  the  sun  wove 

Of  shade  and  latticed  light. 

Each  brittle  booth  and  joy-store 

Shines  brightly.     Below  these 
The  ocean  at  a  toy  shore 

Yaps  like  a  Pekinese.' 

But  Mr.  Osbert  Sitwell  can  be  serious  too.  Here 
is  the  first  verse  of  another  poem;  again  he  con- 
ceives in  visual  terms.  The  words  are  used  chiefly 
for  their  roundness  of  sound  and  their  beauty  and 
colour : — 

*  Dusk  floats  up  from  the  earth  beneath, 
Held  in  the  arms  of  the  evening  wind 
The  evening  wind  that  softly  creeps 
Along  the  jasper- terraces, 
To  bear  with  it 
The  old,  sad  scent 

Of  midsummer,  of  trees  and  flowers. 
Whose  bell-shaped  blossoms,  shaken,  torn 
By  the  rough  fingers  of  the  day 
Ring  out  their  frail  and  honeyed  notes.' 

Miss  Edith  Sitwell,  with  a  slightly  shorter  range 
than  her  brother  Osbert,  has  besides  her  satires, 
like  him,  written  quite  a  number  of  '  straight '  poems, 


THE  SITWELLS  243 

many  of  them  very  successful.  She  is  in  her  own 
style  a  poet  whose  works  have  extraordinary  finish. 
She  has  always  reminded  me  of  a  Vibrist  painter. 
The  adherents  of  this  school  have,  beside  a  number 
of  theories,  one  practice  in  common — they  apply 
their  paint  in  blobs.  A  grey  is  produced  by  in- 
numerable definite  specks  of  many  bright  colours 
so  mingled  as  in  totality  to  produce  the  effect  of 
grey.  As  for  the  drawing,  it  is  not  done  with  lines, 
but  is  also  done  with  blobs.  Stand  close  to  the 
picture,  and  it  is  generally  impossible  to  gather  the 
intentions  of  the  painter  either  as  to  colour  or  form, 
but  retire  a  little  from  it  and  the  pattern  becomes 
clear.  Miss  Edith  Sitwell's  work  is  like  a  Vibrist 
picture  in  being  made  up  of  innumerable  small 
bright  patches  of  colour — very  clear,  very  bright, 
often  startling,  sometimes  pretty.  It  is  not  every- 
body who  can  make  little  blobs  of  bright  definite 
colour  with  printer's  ink.  To  do  so  requires  con- 
siderable artifice. 

Take  the   following,   which  also  contains  some 
good  instances  of  sense  interchange  : — 

*  Across  the  fields  as  gfreen  as  spinach, 
Cropped  as  close  as  Time  to  Greenwich, 

Stands  a  high  house;  if  at  all, 
Spring-  comes  like  a  Paisley  shawl — 

Patterning"s  meticulous 
And  youthfully  ridiculous. 

In  each  roomi  the  yellow  sun 
Shakes  like  ^  canary,  run 


244       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME  MODERN  POETS 

On  run,  roulade,  and  watery  trill — 
Yellow,  meaningless,  and  shrill. 

Face  as  white  as  any  clock's, 
Cased  in  parsley-dark  curled  locks. 

All  day  long  you  sit  and  sew, 
Stitch,  life  down  for  fear  it  grow. 

Stitch  life  down  for  fear  we  guess 
At  the  hidden  ugliness. 

Dusty  voice  that  throbs  with  heat, 
Hoping  with  its  steel-thin  beat 

Tot  put  stitches  in  my  mind, 
Make  it  tidy,  make  it  kind ; 

You  shall  not !     Til  keep  it  free 
Though  you  turn  earth,  sky,  and  sea 

To  a  patchwork  quilt!  to  keep 
Your  mind  snug  and  warm  in  sleep.' 

Another  poem  about  trams  in  the  same  book 
('  The  Wooden  Pegasus,'  a  very  apt  title),  is  as  gay 
and  lively  as  a  Lovat  Fraser  drawing  : — 

*  Castlesi  of  crystal, 
Castles  of  wood. 
Moving  on  pulleys 
Just  as  you  should  ! 
See  the  g"ay  people 
Flaunting  like  flags. 
Bells  in  the  steeple. 
Sky  all  in  rags  ^   .   .   . 

Miss  Sitwell  can  also  write  seriously.  The  last 
poem  in  '  The  Wooden  Pegasus  '  is  on  the  theme  of 
the  man,  who  for  the  sake  of  a  cruel  wanton,  murders 
his  mother  and  is  forgiven  by  her,  the  theme  with 


THE  SITWELLS  245 

which  Mme.  Yvette  Gilbert  used  to  make  our  hearts 
bleed  with  her  whispered  '  fai  tu  fait  mal,  mon  en- 
fant? 

Mr.  Sacheverell  Sitwell  can  write  in  the  family 
satiric  strain  and  write  well,  as,  for  example,  in 
'  Mrs.  H.  .  .  or  A  Lady  from  Babel,'  or  he  can  write 
very  charming  '  straight '  verse  as  in  '  Serenade  ' : 

*  Sigh  softly,  sigh  softly, 

rain-thrilled  leaves  ! 
Let  not  your  careless  hands 
Stem  the  gold  wind  ! 
Let  not  your  green  sleeves 
Swim  in  its  breath 
As  water  flowing  !  * 

But  he  is  a  poet  who  very  badly  needs  an  annotator. 
The  '  Lady  from  Babel '  has  been  explained  to  me 
by  one  of  his  family,  and  directly  we  are  put  en 
rapport  with  it,  is  is  obviously  amusing  and  fulfils 
its  light  satirical  purpose  very  well.  Or  take  again 
'  Laughing  Lions  will  come,'  a  very  '  young ' 
poem  where,  as  in  Mr.  Vachel  Lindsay's  '  Golden 
Whales  of  California,'  the  poet  oscillates  between 
genuine  and  satirical  gorgeousness.  Here  if  the 
different  portions  of  the  poem  are  carefully  marked 
off  for  us  by  someone  who  has  got  the  key  and  it 
is  explained  to  us  exactly  what  the  pieces  of  parody 
are  intended  to  satirise,  the  poem  becomes  not 
merely  not  ridiculous  (I  confess  to  have  felt  sure  it 
was  ridiculous  on  first  reading),  but  even  mode- 
rately attractive. 

Now  for  a  poet  to  need  annotation  is  not  so  much 
a  proof  of  weakness  in  the  poet,  as  a  proof  that 


246       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

there  is  something  wrong  somewhere.  Who  was  it 
said  that  when  we  experienced  the  sensation  of 
being  bored  we  could  only  be  sure  of  one  thing — 
that  there  was  a  bore  in  company?  So  it  is  with 
this  business  of  explanatory  notes,  either  the  reader 
or  the  poet  is  at  fault.  I  used  to  be  quite  sure 
when  a  passage  seemed  obscure  that  it  was  Mr. 
Sacheverell  who  was  in  the  wrong,  but  though  I  still 
tend  to  this  opinion,  I  am  by  no  means  so  sure  of 
it  as  I  was. 


JOHN    MASEFIELD. 

Dr.  Johnson  declared  that  when  we  judged  a 
poet  we  must  grant  him  a  certain  amount  of 
credit  for  the  actual  bulk  of  his  work.  It  is  im- 
possible to  consider  the  case  of  Mr.  Masefield  with- 
out believing  that  Johnson  was  to  some  extent 
right.  There  is  no  question  here  of  promise  and 
of  hint.  Mr.  Masefield's  poems  unroll  before  us 
in  a  bright,  many-coloured  pageant  of  accomplish- 
ment. 

He  has  plenty  of  faults.  In  every  narrative  that 
he  has  ever  written  there  can  be  found  (indeed 
there  cry  out)  line  upon  line  of  mechanically  con- 
trived antithesis,  line  upon  line  of  execrable 
phraseology.  He  is  one  of  the  easiest  poets  to 
parody ;  especially  as  he  shows  himself  in  the  often 
crude  thought  and  diction  of  the  earlier  poems. 
Mr.  Masefield  seems  to  have  hardly  any  power  of 


JOHN  MASEFIELD  247 

self-criticism,  but  will  print  the  strangest  piebald 
pieces  of  work.  Take  'Enslaved,'  for  example; 
in  the  first  seventeen  pages,  this  poem  ranges  from 
the  mediocre  to  the  fantastically  bad.  This  sort 
of  beginning  would,  one  would  vhave  thought  have 
been  enough  to  ruin  any  poem.  Such  loss  in  the 
attack  must  surely  daunt  any  poet.  Not  at  all ! 
The  whole  of  the  rest  of  '  Enslaved  '  is  in  a  dif- 
ferent metre  and  in  Mr.  Masefield's  most  admirable 
narrative  style.  He  is  not  a  whit  embarrassed  or 
depressed.  Quotation  is  almost  impossible,  for  it 
is  the  quick  breathlessness  of  the  story  and  the 
anxiety  we  feel  for  the  event  which  are  so  remark- 
able. His  concern  will  not  improbably  make  the 
reader  miss  much  of  the  beauty  of  the  verse  at  first 
perusal.  The  story,  like  an  impatient  guide,  hur- 
ries us  along  at  a  running  pace,  and  we  only  get  a 
fleeting  half-view  of  white  toppling  seas,  of  rigging 
black  in  the  moonlight,  of  the  dripping  walls  of  a 
cave  where  the  galley  slaves  are  imprisoned,  and 
of  the  high,  white-washed  walls  of  the  Khalif  s 
house  of  women  at  Marrakesh. 

Mr.  Masefield  can  always  intrigue  and  excite  his 
reader;  he  much  more  often  makes  a  mistake  in 
his  capacity  as  a  poet  than  as  a  story-teller,  though, 
curiously  enough,  this  instinct  for  plot  and  the 
arrangement  of  incident  often  deserts  him  when  he 
turns  to  drama.  There  is  a  curious  langour,  for 
instance,  about  his  'Pompey  the  Great,' but  this  fault 
I  think  we  can  partly  trace  to  the  difficulty  which 
I  have  tried  to  set  out  in  speaking  of  Mr.  Waley's 
Translations  of  the  Japanese  No  Plays.     Our  con- 


248       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME  MODERN  POETS 

vention  is  at  the  moment  in  a  very  uncomfortable 
state  as  far  as  the  poetic  drarna  is  concerned.  We 
have  not  yet  found  for  it  a  form,  a  method  of 
narration  which  will  prevent  the  auditor  pining  for 
a  realism  which  is  rather  beside  the  point  in  the 
poetic  drama.  In  the  case  of  Pompey  the  author 
vacillates  too.  I  am  not  sure,  though,  that  in  one 
play  Mr.  Masefield  has  not  got  round  the  difficulty, 
and  that  is  in  '  Philip  the  King,'  a  one-act  verse 
play  of  great  merit,  in  which  King  Philip  of  Spain 
and  the  Infanta  hear  the  news  of  the  Armada,  first 
a  rumour  of  victory  and  then  the  truth.  This,  with 
its  narration  of  physical  events  and  our  witnessing 
on  the  stage  of  the  psychological  effects  of  these 
physical  events,  seems  to  me  to  hit  off  very  well  the 
proper  treatment  of  incident  for  a  poetic  play. 

But  people  are  perhaps  too  apt  to  consider  Mr. 
Masefield  only  in  his  capacity  as  a  writer  of  long 
narratives,  the  fact  being  that  he  can  hold  his  own 
with  most  of  his  contempararies  as  a  lyric  and  elegiac 
poet.  For  example,  his  beautifully  polished  and 
complete  '  August,  1914/  is  perhaps  the  best  poem 
that  the  War  produced.  '  Biography '  is  another 
poem  of  extraordinary  charm — simple,  tranquil  and 
extraordinarily  individual  and  expressive.  In  the 
same  volume  as  '  Enslaved,'  there  are  also  two  ex- 
ceedingly good  ballads — '  Cap  on  Head  '  and  '  The 
Hounds  of  Hell.'  The  latter  is  one  of  the  best 
poems  of  the  Gothic  Supernatural  that  has  been 
writtence  since  '  Cristabel.' 

Every  night  a  ghostly  huntsman,  hunts  living, 
sometimes  human,  prey  over  the  Weald.       Night 


JOHN  MASEFIELD  249 

after  night  the  faint  horn  is  heard,  and  some  mis- 
fortune to  flock  or  herd  is  discovered  in  the  morn- 
ing. At  last  a  shepherd  is  found  on  the  Downs 
with  his  throat  torn,  and  no  one  dare  any  longer  live 
in  the  haunted  countryside  : 

*  Men  let  the  hay  crop  run  to  seed 
And  the  corn  crop  sprout  in  ear, 
And  the  root  crop  choke  itself  in  weed, 
That  hell-hound  hunting  year.* 

At  last  St.  Withiel,  who  lives  not  far  thence, 
resolves  that  he  will  stop  the  powers  of  evil.  He 
takes  his  stick  and  goes  to  this  now  desolated 
country  where  no  human  creature  stirs.  He  will 
face  the  terror,  whatever  it  may  be.  Night  falls 
and  all  the  powers  of  nature  seem  in  league  to  ter- 
rify the  saint : 

'  The  darkness  cackled  in  his  heart 

The  things  of  hell  were  there. 
That  the  startled  rabbit  played  a  part 

And  the  stoat's  leap  did  prepare — 

Prepare  the  stage  of  night  for  blood, 

And  the  mind  of  night  for  death, 
For  a  spirit  trembling  in  the  mud 

In  an  agony  for  breath.' 

At  last,  after  an  hour  or  two  of  such  vigil,  he  hears, 
far  away,  the  quavering  death  note  blown  on  the 
devil's  horn;  another  moment  and  he  hears  the 
hounds  casting  for  him  close  at  hand.  They  are 
in  cry.  Terror  seizes  him,  he  becomes  a  mere 
'  screaming  will  '  to  save  his  body  from  their  jaws. 
He  runs  till  his  heart  is  ready  to  burst,  and  at  last 
swings  himself  into  a  tree  and  so  throws  the  hounds 
off  for  the  moment.     He  hears  them  casting  under- 


250       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME  MODERN  POETS 

neath  him,  ranging  with  softly  padding  feet.  They 
are  completely  at  fault,  and  at  last  the  huntsman 
calls  them  off  and  silence  falls  again.  Anguish  at 
his  failure  seizes  the  saint.  Christ  died  on  a  tree 
for  him,  but  he  has  used  a  tree  to  hide.  He  comes 
down  and  resolves  that  he  will  dare  the  hounds 
again.  But  once  more  the  cold  note  of  the  horn 
and  the  sound  of  the  Hell  Hounds  on  the  scent 
turns  his  blood  to  water.  This  time,  in  his  utter 
panic,  the  saint  swims  across  a  river  and  finds  him- 
self in  a  sort  of  paradise,  and  so  fortified,  has  at 
last  strength  to  go  back  to  face  Death  and  the 
Hounds,  over  whom  he  at  last  triumphs.  Here  is 
no  botching  work;  every  verse  and  every  line  is 
telling. 

Mr.  Masefield  also  knows  how  to  write  a  son- 
net. There  is,  for  instance,  a  sonnet  sequence 
called  '  Animula  '  in  '  Enslaved  '  that  tells  the  story 
of  a  husband  and  wife,  and  of  the  lover  with  whom 
the  wife  will  not  fly.  The  woman,  tormented  by 
the  love  to  which  she  will  not  submit  and  by  her 
unhappiness  with  her  suspicious,  angry  husband, 
seeks  escape  and  throws  herself  into  the  sea  : 

*  So,  when  the  ninth  wave  drowned  her,  haply  she 
Wakened,  with  merging"  senses,  till  she  blent 
Into  the  joy  and  colour  of  the  sea, 
One  with  the  purpose  of  the  element. 
And  there,  perhaps,  she  cannot  feel  the  woe 
Passed  in  this  rotting  house,  but  runs  like  light 
Over  the  billows  where  the  clippers  go, 
One  with  the  blue  sea*s  pureness  of  delight ; 
Laughing,  perhaps  at  that  old  woe  of  hers 
Chained  in  the  cage  with  fellow-prisoners.  * 


JOHN  MASEFIELD  25 1 

It  is  in  such  poems  as  this  and  the  curious  set  of 
verses,  called  '  The  Lemmings,'  that  the  mystical 
element  of  Mr.  Masefield's  work  is  displayed.  We 
realise  something  of  the  strength  of  this  element 
in  him  when  we  consider  how  vivid  is  the  extro- 
vertic  part  of  his  nature.  For  outward  things  are 
never  to  him  as  we  sometimes  ifeel  they  are  to  Mr. 
Turner  and  Mr.  Graves — valuable  only  in  as  far  as 
they  will  serve  as  symbols  by  which  it  is  possible 
to  externalise  and  make  tangible  the  adventures  of 
the  soul.  Mr.  Masefield  is  emphatically  one  who 
loves  colours,  sounds  and  sights  for  themselves. 

It  is  perhaps  in  this  power  of  caring  for  objects 
and  events,  both  for  themselves  and  as  instruments 
shaping  the  mind  of  man,  that  Mr.  Masefield's 
special  strength  lies.  '  Reynard  the  Fox,*  for  in- 
stance, will  please  two  sorts  of  reader  or  the  same 
reader  in  two  different  moods.  What  we  might  call 
the  two  layers  of  its  meaning  have  been  treated  with 
equal  gusto  by  the  poet.  The  result  of  this  is  that 
the  poem  is  extremely  vital  and  in  a  subtle  sense 
— in  spite  of  crude  blemishes — harmonious.  Soul 
and  body  are  never  at  variance,  neither  has  to  drag 
a  dead  weight.  It  is  perhaps  in  this  remarkable 
integration,  rather  than  in  great  force  of  intellect 
or  fancy,  that  Mr.  Masefield's  strength  lies.  It 
may  be  that  a  good  proportion  of  his  faults  occurs 
in  passages  in  which  he  has  tried  to  alter  the 
natural  balance  of  the  two  elements. 


252       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME  MODERN  POETS 


WALTER  DE  LA  MARE 

Perhaps  no  poet,  except  Shakespeare  and  Cole- 
ridge, has  ever  written  such  good  magic  poetry  as 
Mr.  de  la  Mare.  There  are,  of  course,  a  great 
many  different  sorts  of  magic  poetry.  There  is  the 
intimate  bucolic  rustic  sort — Lobb  and  Puck  bob- 
bing for  apples — there  is  the  grand  architectural 
sort,  of  which  Coleridge  was  a  master  : 

'  But  oh  !  that  deep  romantic  chasm  which  slanted 
Down  the  green  hill  athwart  a  cedarn  cover  ! 
A  savage  place  !  as  holy  and  enchanted 
As  e'er  beneath  a  waning  moon  was  haunted 
By  woman  wailing  for  her  demon-lover  !  ' 

Or  there  is  the  arid  horror  of  the  witches  in  '  Mac- 
beth '  and  the  horses  that  '  eat  each  other.'  But 
Shakespeare  could  do  all  kinds  of  magic.  He 
could  write,  '  Fear  no  more  the  heat  of  the  sun,'  or 
the  extremely  advanced  and  Georgian,  '  When  that 
I  was  and  a  little  tiny  boy,'  both  of  which  belong  to 
a  very  different  kind  of  enchantment.  Mr.  de  la 
Mare's  magic  is,  as  a  rule,  of  this  last  type.  We 
can  parallel  his  prevailing  mood  in  '  Full  Fathom 
Five  '  or  '  Come  unto  these  yellow  sands.'  ^His 
work  has  the  same  remote,  passionless  beauty  : 

*  Not  a  wave  breaks, 
Not  a  bird  calls, 
My  heart,  like  a  sea, 
Silent  after  a  storm  that  hath  died, 
Sleeps  withini  me. 


/ 


WALTER  DE  LA  MARE  253 

All  the  night's  dews, 
All  the  world's  leaves, 
All  winter's  snow 
Seem  with  their  quiet  tO'  have  stilled  in  life's  dream 
All  sorrowing  now. '  ,^ 

Some  people — the  present  writer  confesses  to  have 
been  long  ago  among  them — find  Mr.  de  la  Mare's 
verse  a  little  unsatisfying,  a  little  too  limpid,  and 
inhuman.  But  now,  since  the  '  collected  edition  ' 
and  the  publication  of  '  The  Veil,'  his  work  can  be 
considered  in  the  mass.  In  some  curious  way,  the 
short  poems  seem  to  reinforce  one  another  and  to 
create  a  remarkable  atmosphere  with  their  subtle  v 
cadences,  the  niceties  of  their  rhythm  and  the  extra- 
ordinary propriety  of  their  vocabulary.  These 
poems  are  like  silk  threads  which  are  individually 
fragile,  but  which,  woven  together,  make  a  fabric  of 
unmatched  fineness  and  strength,  and  one  capable 
of  taking  on  the  softest,  clearest  colours.  Here  is 
one  more  example  of  this — Mr.  de  la  Mare's  main 
manner.  It  is  '  The  Sunken  Garden,'  perhaps  after 
'  The  Listeners,'  his  best-known  poem  :  v/ 

*  Speak  not — whisper  not ; 
Here  bloweth  thyme  and  bergamot ; 
Softly  on  the  evening  hour, 
Secret  herbs  their  spices  shower, 
Dark-spiked  rosemary  and  myrrh, 
Lean-stalked,  purple  lavender ; 
Hides  within  her  bosom,  too, 
All  her  sorrows,  bitter  rue. 

Breathe  not — trespass  not ; 
Of  this  green  and  darkling*  spot, 
Latticed  from  the  moon^s  beams, 
Perchance  a  distant  dreamer  dreams ; 


254       SHORT   STORIES   OF   SOME  MODERN  POETS 

Perchance  upon  its  darkening  air, 
The  unseen  ghosts  of  children  fare, 
Faintly  swinging,  sway  and  sweep, 
Like  lovely  sea-flowers  in  the  deep ; 
While,  unmoved,  to  watch  and  ward, 
Amid  its  gloomed  and  daisied  sward. 
Stands  with  bowed  and  dewy  head 
That  one  little  leaden  Lad.' 

But  Mr.  de  la  Mare  has  three  other  well-marked 
styles.  I  shall  say  nothing  here  of  his  poetry  for 
children,  except  that  I  think  that,  on  the  whole,  it 
is  probably  the  best  that  has  ever  been  written. 
Two  of  his  most  attractive  essays  in  this  vein  are 
quoted  on  page  121  (Chapter  14).  Then  he  knows 
another  sort  of  magic.  It  must  be  a  difficult  kind 
to  weave,  because  he  seems  only  to  bring  off  the 
spell  occasionally.  The  magic  is  the  evocation  of 
one  of  Shakespeare's  characters.  Out  of  eight  or 
ten  attempts  at  materialisation,  he  twice  produces 
the  authentic  personality.  In  '  Polonius '  and 
'  Juliet's  Nurse,*  we  feel  sure — as  Mr.  Munro,  I 
think,  says  somewhere — that  Mr.  de  la  Mare  has  got 
hold  of  some  uncanny  sort  of  private  source  of 
knowledge.  How  did  he  know  just  how,  'gloomy 
and  wise  and  sly,'  Juliet's  nurse  sat  on  in  the  old 
deserted  nursery,  gossipping-to  a  young  cousin  from 
the  country. 

*  There's  not  a  soldier  but  hath  babes  in  view ; 
There's  not  on  earth  what  minds  not  of  the  midwife.' 

Her  mind  is  an  anthill,  and  those  eyes,  '  arch, 
lewd  and  pious,'  that  know  so  effectively  how  to 
^  paint  disaster  with  uplifted  whites  ' !     And  those 


WALTER  DE  LA  MARE  255 

fat,  small  hands,  '  babied  hands  '  that  pleat  up  or 
smooth  the  dark,  handsome  silk  of  her  dress.  How 
did  he  know? 

What  are  Mr.  de  la  Mare's  faults.^  He  has  very 
few  and  they  are  not  of  great  moment.  First,  I 
should  put  a  tendency  to  use  Thou  and  Thee  with-  \J 
out  very  sufficient  reason,  also  he  has  a  good  many 
archaic  words  of  which  he  seems  rather  over  fond, 
such  as  '  groat,'  '  helm,'  '  wondrous,'  even  '  eft- 
soons.'  Then  some  of  his  poems  for  children  end 
sadly.  That  the  instrument  upon  which  he  gener- 
ally plays  is  a  sort  of  poetic  clavicord  I  hold  to  be 
no  reproach.  All  art  is  to  a  great  extent  a  process 
of  limitation  and  selection.  Mr.  de  la  Mare's 
achievements  more  than  justify  him  in  the  length  to 
which  he  has  carried  this  process.  There  remains, 
besides  his  rare  '  vers  de  societe,'  one  more  manner 
to  be  considered.  He  has  also  written  a  few  poems 
— there  are  three  of  them  in  '  The  Veil ' — ^which 
show  a  remarkable  depth  of  human  feeling.  '  The 
Suicide  *  is  one  such  poem,  and  another  is  '  The 
Dock '  : 

*  Pallid,  mis-shapen  he  stands.     The  world's  grimed  thumb 
Now  hooked  securely  in  his  matted  hair, 
Has  haled  him  strugfg-ling  from  his  poisonous  slum 
And  flung  him  mute  as  fish  close-netted  there. 
His  bloodless  hands  entalon  that  iron  rail. 
He  gloats  in  beastlike  trance.     His  settling  eyes 
From  staring  face  to  face  rove  on — and  quail. 
Justice  for  carrion  pants ;   and  these  the  flies. 
Voice  after  voice  in  smooth  impartial  drone 
Erects  horrific  in  his  darkening  brain 
A  timber  framework,  where  agape,  alone 
Bright  life  will  kiss  good-bye  the  cheek  of  Cain. 


256       SHORT   STORIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

Sudden  like  wolf  he  cries  :  and  sweats  to  see. 
When  howls  man's  soul,  it  howls  inaudibly.* 

Here  speaks  true  compassion  which  knows  that 
the  innocent  hold  no  monopoly  of  suffering. 

If  Mr.  de  la  Mare  does  go  on  to  develop  this 
style,  we  shall  see  in  his  work  a  good  example  of 
the  difference  between  Magic  and  Mysticism. 
Magic  is  mysticism  externalised  and  personified. 
An  elf  or  an  apparition  is  a  detached  being,  the 
personification  of  the  oddness  of  some  human  crea- 
ture. Therefore,  the  more  oddness  goes  to  the  elf, 
and  the  more  definite  existence  he  has  the  less  odd 
will  be  the  human  beings — actually  and  compara- 
tively— ^with  whom  he  is  contrasted.  The  Mystic 
is  like  the  pantheist,  '  Lift  the  stone  and  I  am 
there,  gaze  into  the  water,  I  am  there.'  The  weaver 
of  magic  has  in  his  personifica.tion  taken  the  first 
step  towards  Olympianising  the  unknown. 

All  mystery  gods,  so  Sir  James  Frazer  tells  us, 
become  objective  and  Olympianised  in  time.  This 
process,  I  fancy,  we  may  be  going  to  see  reversed 
in  the  case  of  Mr.  de  la  Mare's  imaginings.  '  The 
Veil '  seems  to  contain  indications  that  he  is  going 
to  put  the  mystic  element  back  into  the  very  stuff 
of  his  poetry.  The  reader  should  consider  the  last 
two  lines  of  '  The  Dock  '  from  this  point  of  view. 


SHORT   STUDIES   OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS      257 


ARTHUR   WALEY. 

Mr.  Waley  is  a  translator,  but  it  would  be  as  absurd 
to  deny  to  him  the  title  of  poet  as  to  refuse  it  to 
FitzGerald.  Like  FitzGerald  he  appears  to  be  an 
interpretative  artist  of  the  finest  sensibility,  and — 
perhaps  from  his  contact  with  a  literature  more 
delicate  than  the  Persian — a  metrical  experimenter 
of  the  utmost  skill.  Though  not  announcing  his 
theories  in  the  matter  of  blank  verse  rhythms  with 
the  vigour  of  the  imagists  or  of  the  disciples  of 
polyphonic  prose  he  has  none  the  less  perfected 
one  or  tvv^o  beautiful  unrhymed  measures.  More- 
over, he  has  evolved  a  curious  limpid  crystal- 
line vocabulary  and  style,  its  perfect  transparence 
the  result,  the  reader  feels,  in  a  high  degree  of  the 
process  of  polishing.  Here  is  an  instance  of  Mr. 
Waley's  method.  The  translation  is  from  the  works 
of  Po-Chu-i,  and  was  written  about  a.d.  830.  Po- 
Chu-i,  was,  besides  being  a  great  poet,  a  high 
official,  the  humane  and  enlightened  governor  of  a 
province  : 

*  To  A  Talkative  Guest. 
The  town  visitor's  easy  talk  flows  in  an  endless  stream ; 
The  country  host's  quiet  thoug^hts  ramble  timidly  on. 
**  I  beg  you,  Sir,  do  not  tell  me  about  things  at  Ch'ang-an, 
For  you  entered  just  when  my  harp  was  tuned  and  lying 
balanced  on  my  knees. ' '  ' 

But  perhaps  of  an  even  higher  quality  is  the  fol- 
lowing. Its  eight  lines  surely  express  all  the 
tragedy  of  slavery  : — 


258       SHORT    STUDIES   OF    SOME   MODERN   POETS 

*  Losing  a  Slave-Girl. 

Around  my  garden  the  little  wall  is  low ; 

In  the  bailiff's  lodge  the  lists  are  seldom  checked. 

I  am  ashamed  to  think  we  were  not  always  kind ; 

I  regret  your  labours,  that  will  never  be  repaid. 

The  caged  bird  owes  no  allegiance ; 

The  wind-tossed  flower  does  not  cling  to  the  tree. 

Where  to-night  she  lies  nond  can  give  us  news ; 
Nor  any  knows,  save  the  bright  watching  moon. ' 

Mr.  Waley  has  also  done  another  very  interest- 
ing piece  of  work.  He  has  translated  and  ex- 
pounded a  number  of  the  traditional  No  Plays  of 
Japan.  Now  these  plays  are  chiefly  interesting 
because  they  employ  a  very  striking  dramatic  form. 
The  time  seems  ripe  in  Europe  for  the  revival  of 
poetic  drama.  But  at  the  moment  the  difficulty 
seems  to  be  to  hit  upon  a  form  in  which  w^e  may 
crystallise  our  impulse. 

For  our  poetic  drama  has  certainly  got  to  run 
concurrently  with  a  realistic  drama.  Now  the  fault 
of  the  ordinary  dramatic  forms  for  the  purposes  of 
the  poetic  drama  is  that  when  a  non-realistic  drama 
is  cast  in  these  lines,  however  wild  the  plot,  how- 
ever improbable  the  characters,  the  audience  un- 
consciously begin  to  miss  the  absent  realism.  In 
plays  which  are  consciously  archaic  or  even  in  the 
Elizabethan  drama  we  are  every  now  and  then 
brought  back  to  earth  by  our  longing  for  realism. 
The  music  of  Juliet's  love  lyrics  is  made  a  little 
unreal  to  us  by  speculations  as  to  whether  a  young 
girl  really  would  speak  so,  whether  any  passionate 


ARTHUR  WALEY  259 

lover  could  find  similes  so  exact,  phrases  so  musical. 
The  form  adopted  by  the  writers  of  the  No  plays  is 
one  so  formal  that  it  at  once  rids  us  of  this  diffi- 
culty. The  plays  are  performed  upon  a  stage 
divided  into  two  parts,  inner  and  outer.  Ballet 
plays  a  considerable  part  in  them.  There  are  prac- 
tically no  properties  and  no  scenery;  the  dress  of 
the  actors  is,  however,  often  magnificent,  and  certain 
of  them  are  masked,  and  because  there  are  no 
realistic  properties  the  author  need  not  hesitate  to 
introduce  into  his  drama  boats,  carriages,  rocks, 
rivers,  or  trees  as  he  pleases. 

But  the  chief  point  of  the  form  is  that  nearly  all 
the  action  is  both  retrospective  and  yet  at  the  same 
tim.e  of  '  real '  import  at  the  moment. 

There  are  too  many  ways  of  treating  a  theme 
according  to  No  formulae  for  a  summary  here,  but 
Mr.  Waley  gives  all  the  necessary  recipes  in  his 
preface,  giving  as  an  example  the  theme  of  the 
Duchess  of  Malfi  treated  in  this  v/ay  and  reduced 
to  two  short  acts. 


EDWARD  SHANKS. 

I  THINK  if  a  lover  of  the  classics  came  to  me,  or  a 
man  v/ho  read  Milton,  Keats  and  Wordsworth,  and 
loved  beauty  and  '  the  grand  style,'  and  told  me 
that  he  desired  to  increase  his  range  by  an  appre- 
ciation of  modern  poetry,  and  if  he  asked  me  how 
he  had  best  approach  it,   I  should  give  him  Mr. 


26o      SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

Edward  Shanks'  poetry  to  read.  There  are  per- 
haps those  who  would  say  that  in  doing  this  I  was 
not  giving  him  modern  poetry  at  all,  that  Mr. 
Shanks'  work  differs  hardly  perceptibly  from  the 
old  tradition;  but  I  think  they  would  be  wrong. 
Of  course  his  methods  perpetually  remind  us  of 
'  the  old  masters.'  There  is  a  great  deal  of  '  The 
Queen  of  China/  which  reminds  us,  not  perhaps  of 
any  particular  Elizabethan,  but  of  the  general  body 
of  Elizabethan  dramatic  blank  verse.  Take  the 
following,  for  instance  : 

*  First  Traveller  :  How  stands  the  prince 

In  this  new  turmoil  of  the  wildered  court, 
Who  when  we  last  were  here  was  next  the  throne, 
His  father's  chosen  son? 

Chamberlain  :  He  is  grown  grave. 

Even  as  the  king  has  waxed  in  youthfulness, 
So  he  in  gravity  and  the  look;  of  years. 
You  were  his  friends  before,  but  you'll  be  fortuned 
If  now  he  will  exchange  five  words  with  you.' 

Or  again,  the  following  is  unmistakably  Miltonic  : 

Gobi  and  Shamo  and  the  salten  waste 
Beyond  Bokhara  and  the  lonely  marshes 
That  lie  beside  the  desolate  Caspian  .   .   .' 

*The  Island  of  Youth'  is  full  of  echoes  of  Endy- 
mion,  and  here  and  there  of  Tennyson  and  Matthew 
Arnold.  There  is  something  as  definitely  Vic- 
torian in  '  The  Night  Jars  '  as  there  is  definitely 
Wordsworthian  in  the  title,  '  Stanzas  Written  in  De- 
jection.' But  Mr.  Shanks  is  always  using  the  old 
material  for  a  new  purpose,  and  that  is  why  his 
poetry  makes  such  a  good  introduction  to  modern 


EDWARD  SHANKS  26 1 

verse  for  those  brought  up  in  the  old  tradition.  He 
nearly  always  gives  the  content  and  purpose  of 
modern  verse,  but  he  does  not  work  with  quite  the 
usual  Georgian  means,  and  it  is  the  means,  not 
the  end,  that  appear  for  the  most  part  to  frighten 
conservative  lovers  of  verse. 

If  the  reader  expects  me  to  tell  him  in  so  many 
words  what  the  ends  of  modern  poetry  are,  I  am 
afraid  he  must  be  disappointed.  If  they  could  be 
stated  m  a  sentence,  it  would  not  be  necessary  to 
take  the  great  trouble  of  stating  them  in  sonnets, 
epics  or  elegies.  I  am  not  sure  that  they  are  cap- 
able of  direct  statement  at  all.  It  must  suffice  to 
say  here  that  they  have  something  to  do  with  human 
psychology.  We  are  all  conscious  that  there  are 
elements  within  us — things  in  our  outlook  upon  our- 
selves and  the  universe — which  are  highly  elusive 
and  difficult  to  express.  The  modern  poet,  like  the 
seventeenth  century  metaphysical  poet,  finds  him- 
self for  the  most  part  engaged  in  an  effort 
to  show  us  some  aspect  or  other  of  this  irrational, 
but,  as  modern  psychologists  tell  us,  most  real  and 
most  potent  part  of  our  make-up.  Of  course,  all 
poets  in  all  ages  have  tried  to  display  man  to  him- 
self, and  the  difference  between,  say,  Donne  and 
Tennyson,  in  this  respect  is  one  of  emphasis.  Both 
Donne  and  Tennyson  were  concerned  with  beauty, 
pattern-making,  and  the  mind  of  man.  Often 
Donne  grew  tired  of  his  hard  sayings  and  tried  to 
express  pure  beauty  :  often  Tennyson  grew  tired  of 
beauty  or  didactic  exposition  and  tried  to  express 
the  inexpressible.     But  on  the  whole  modern  poets 


262       SHORT   STUDIES  OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

put  the  emphasis  as  Donne  put  it,  and  moreover 
use  a  medium  a  little  like  his  methods  of  ex- 
pression. Mr.  Shanks,  however,  goes  rather  to  the 
methods  of  Keats,  Tennyson  and  Wordsworth.  In 
unsuccessful  lines,  that  is,  he  is  apt  to  fall  into 
such  a  phrase  as  : 

*  And  longf,  long-  day  added  to  long,  long  day 
In  summer's  fragrant  count  .   .   .' 

But  the  general  conception  of  '  The  Island  of 
Youth  '  is  entirely  modern.  It  tells  the  familiar 
story  of  how  Thetis,  by  her  enchantments,  carried 
her  son,  Achilles,  to  Scyros,  and  there  hid  him  dis- 
guised among  the  maidens  of  the  island,  and  how, 
(the  Oracle  foretelling  that  the  Greeks  could  not 
take  Troy  without  Achilles'  help)  Ulysses  was  sent 
to  find  him  out,  which  he  did  by  means  of  a  trick 
with  a  sword.  Mr.  Shanks  has  used  the  legend  to 
convey  a  sense  of  the  irrevocable  fate  of  Man. 
Thetis  has  thought  to  cheat  the  Oracle,  to  cheat 
Death,  but  her  son  is  mortal  like  the  rest  of  us,  and 
his  fate  cannot  be  gainsaid.  The  beginning  of  the 
poem  is  concerned  with  the  sweet  enchantment  that 
Thetis — her  son  hidden — lays  upon  the  island  that 
has  consented  to  be  his  asylum  : 

* The  simple  island  lords, 

Who  ruled  a  land  as  peaceful  as  themselves, 

Gareful  to  have  the  granges  full  of  corn, 

The  goat-skins  plump  with  wine,  the  flocks  and  herds 

Guarded  and  tended  to  a  due  increase, 

Showed  in  their  eyes,  like  a  reflected  light. 

Serenity,  and  in  their  bearing  peace, 

And  in  their*  speech  a  cadence)  tranquiller 

Than  they  had  used  before ' 


EDWARD  SHANKS  263 

Sun,  soft  airs  and  a  mild  sea,  prosper  the  affairs  of 
Scyros  as  never  before  : 

'  And  in  that  summer,  Thetis'  blessing-  lay 
Especially  upon  her.     Fishermen 
Thanked  the  sea-g^oddess  for  continual  calm 
That  lulled  their  storm-washed  vessels  near  the  rocks 
And  herded  in  their  nets  the  plenteous  fish. 
The  farmers  watched  their  fields  grow  day  by  day 
More  fruitful,  and  the  vines  under  the  sun 
More  prosperously  ripen  toi  the  vintage, 
Unvexed  by  creeping  rot  or  summer  tempest. 
Nor  wolf  nor  murrain  did  the  shepherd  plague 
And  on  his  thyme-grown  hills  he  slept  at  night, 
Close  by  the  dew-pond's  green  and  glimmering  round 
While  all  about  him  slept  the  peaceful  flock 
Like  white  stones  under  the  distant,  kindly  stars.' 

The  psychology  of  Achilles,  whose  whole  nature 
has  been  changed  to  something  of  womanliness  by 
his  mother's  spell,  is  delineated  with  a  sure,  light 
touch.  The  enchantment  makes  him  unhappy,  and 
uneasiness  broods  upon  him.  At  last  his  hour 
comes.  Ulysses'  wile  of  the  sword  succeeds,  not  so 
much  in  revealing  the  truth  to  its  deviser,  as  in 
teaching  Achilles  the  truth  about  his  own  nature. 
He  climbs  up  the  hill-side  and  realises  a  future  : 

*  Dark  to  forsee,  but  heavy  with  a  sense 

Of  weariness  and  blame  and  shame  and  tears.* 

He  throws  aside  his  maiden's  garments,  and  from 
that  eclipse  the  hero's  body  rises  *  sullen  hued.' 
All  night  he  wanders  over  the  mountains  and  at 
last,  sitting  under  an  olive  tree  : 

*  Bowed  his  hot  forehead  into  cramped  hands, 
Feeling  a  little  world  whose  pulses  beat 
Like  earthquakes  or  annihilating  wars.' 


264       SHORT   STUDIES  OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

There  are  two  very  curious  poems  in  the 
same  volume — '  The  Emigration '  and  '  The 
End ' — two  poems  which  incidentally  are  much 
more  modern  in  execution.  One  describes  the 
weary  trek  of  a  whole  people  from  a  valley  which 
their  increasing  numbers  has  made  too  narrow  for 
their  support.  The  other  is  a  vision.'  In  this  the 
poet  stands  in  a  tangled  wood  and  sees  a  rider  on 
a  rough,  thin  horse  come  slowly  down  an  unused 
track.  He  is  followed  by  a  crowd  of  people — men 
and  women  of  everyday,  clerks,  workmen  and 
tramps,  young  girls,  children,  all  the  cavalcade  of 
life ;  after  them  come  beasts,  all  the  homely  animals 
that  live  about  our  houses.  These  in  turn  are  fol- 
lowed by  strange,  unknown  tropical  creatures  and 
strange  birds  that  hover  about  the  track.  At  last 
these  too  pass,  and  the  poet  sees  with  a  sort  of 
terror  that  the  trees  seem  to  be  '  dragging  their  long 
roots  '  slowly  out  of  the  ground.  The  smaller  plants 
follow  like  a  swarm  of  bees,  and  the  poet  is  left 
alone  in  a  lifeless  world.  These  two  imaginings 
show  Mr.  Shanks  in  a  somewhat  new  light,  and 
when  we  take  them  in  conjunction  with  the  detach- 
ment and  objectivity  of  such  a  poem  as  '  The 
Swimmers  '  and  the  gaiety  of  '  Fete  Gallante,'  we 
see  what  a  wide  range  he  possesses. 

For  '  Fete  Gallante  '  is  a  lively  piece  of  Ver- 
sailles country  sentiment.  Aristonoe,  the  fading 
shepherdess,  gathers  the  girls  together — Celia, 
Rosalind,  Phyllis,  Helen  and  Chloe  : 

*  Teachingf  them  wisdom  of  love, 
What  to  say,  how  to  dress, 


EDWARD  SHANKS  265 

How  frown,  how  smile, 

How  suitors  to  their  dancingf  feet  to  bring-, 

How  in  mere  walkings  to  beguile. 

What  words  cunningly  said  in  what  a  way 

Will  draw  man*s  busy  fancy  astray, 

All  the  alphabet,  grammar  and  syntax  of  Love.* 

The  garden  is  delicious  and  the  high-heeled  shoes 
print  a  turf  starred  with  daisies.  Some  of  the  girls 
are  not  convinced  that  love  is  made  of  such  crack- 
ling things  as  Aristonoe  would  have  them  believe  : 

*  Celia  tells  the  lesson  over. 
Countings  on  her  fingers — one  and  two  .   .   . 
Ribbon  and  shoe,' 

Skirts,  flowers,  song,  dancing,  laug-hter,  eyes, 
Through  the  whole  catalogue  of  formal  g-allantry. 
And  studious)  coquetries, 
Counting  to  herself  maliciously. ' 

There  is  yet  another  dress  which  Mr.  Shanks  wears 
with  srrace.     He  can  write  an  admirable  ballad  : 


fe^ 


*  Oh,  where  are  you,  my  own  true  love, 

And  why  are  you  not  here? 
The  nightingale  amid  the  boughs 
Is  flattering  his  dear. 

The  night  among  the  empty  fields 

Lies  like  a  child  at  rest. 
And  empty,  empty  are  my  arms. 

And  light,  too  light,  my  breast. ' 

The  verses  which  we  have  quoted  surely  witness  to 
a  very  remarkable  versatility,  especially  when  we 
remember  that  the  volume  of  '  The  Queen  of 
China '  alone  contains  essays  in  three  or  four 
further  distinct  styles. 


266   SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

But  though  he  shows  versatility,  Mr.  Shanks 
shows  curious  faithfulness  to  poetic  diction.  He  is 
quite  content  to  let  the  cloud  be  '  the  sun's  first 
messenger,'  he  will  say  that  a  shell  is  '  rosy,'  the 
ocean  '  wild,'  his  storms  are  apt  to  '  prolong  their 
turmoil.'  Many  modern  poets  would  go  miles  to 
avoid  such  phrases,  but  Mr.  Shanks'  choice  of  them 
seems  to  me  an  interesting  point  in  their  favour,  for 
he  obviously  does  not  use  them  ignorantly,  though 
conceivably  he  may  be  a  little  too  well  read,  and 
they  may  sing  themselves  to  him  so  that  he  cannot 
avoid  them.  I  do  not  think  that  is  the  case,  how- 
ever, for  there  are  many  poems  in  which  he  does  so 
avoid  them,  but  these  are  not  poems  into  which  v/e 
feel  he  has  put  his  whole  heart.  '  Poetic  language  ' 
seems  to  be  his  deliberate  choice. 


AMY  LOWELL. 

The  writings  of  Miss  Amy  Lowell  are  looked  at 
rather  askance  in  this  country.  This  is  perhaps  not 
surprising  :  she  has  a  vigorous  assertive  personality 
and  a  downright  prose  style,  she  is  also  rather  apt 
to  follow  up  dogmatic  critical  statements  with  weak 
lyrics  written  in  accordance  with  her  theories.  Yet 
the  theories  are  often  ingenious.  Sometimes  the 
poems  are  not  only  weak,  but  prosy  and  academic, 
or  even  vulgar.  In  any  case,  in  reading  most  of 
her  verse,  we  are  inclined  to  feel  that,  as  a  creative 
artist,  the  root  of  the  matter  is  not  in  her.     But  in 


AMY  LOWELL  26) 

my  opinion  she  has  written  one  book  which  com- 
I  pensates  for  any  number  of  failures.  It  is  called 
*   '  Can  Grande's  Castle.' 

Of  course  she  must  needs  go  and  alienate  half 
her  readers  by  her  preface  !  In  it  she  seems  to 
j  indicate  that  the  *  polyphonic  '  or  many-voiced  prose 
\  in  which  she  writes, — a  free,  elastic  form,  neither 
metrical,  nor  cadenced  verse — is  practically  a  new 
form  which  she  has  adapted  from  the  French  of 
M.  Paul  Fort.  It  is  based,  she  says,  upon  the  long 
flowing  rhythms  of  oratorical  prose.  Really  it 
consists  of  the  long  flowing  cadences  of  oratorical 
prose  !  Now  and  then  we  have  a  bout  of  rhyming, 
but  otherwise  there  is  hardly  anything  of  the  book 
which,  as  far  as  manner  is  concerned,  might  not 
have  been  written  by  De  Quincey,  a  forerunner 
whom  she  never  mentions.  This  is  not  to  decry 
*  Can  Grande's  Castle,'  for  Miss  Lowell's  work  will 
easily  bear  comparison  with  his.  De  Quincey  is 
often  her  equal  in  inspiration,  but  he  had  little 
except  inspiration.  The  opium-eater  had  not 
energy  left  either  for  the  sustained  patterns  or  for 
the  metaphysics  of  the  American. 

The  second  historical  episode  in  the  book  tells 
the  story  of  the  forcible  opening  up  of  trade  be- 
tween America  and  Japan  by  Commodore  Perry, 
who  sails  in  the  paddle-wheel  frigate,  '  The  Missis- 
sippi' of  the  United  States  Navy.  It  is  one  of  the 
best  examples  of  her  thought  as  apart  from  her 
form,  one  of  the  oblique  descriptions  of  which  she 
is  so  fond.  (I  guarantee  that  the  passage  m.ake^ 
capital  good  sense.) 


268       SHORT   STUDIES  OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

*  The  Commodore  writes  in  his  cabin.  Writes  an 
accxnint  of  what  he  has  done.  The  sands  of  centuries 
run  fast,  one  slides,  and  another,  each  falling*  into  a 
smother  of  dust.  A  locomotive  in  pay  for  a  Whistler; 
telegraph  wires  buying  a  revolution ;  weights  and  mea- 
sures and  Audubon*  s  birds  in  exchange  for  fear.  Yellow 
monkey-men  leaping  out  of  Pandora*9  box,  shaking  the 
rocks  of  the  Western  coastline.  Golden  California 
bartering  panic  for  prints.  The  dressing-gowns  of  a 
continent  won  at  the  cost  of  security.  Artists  and  philo- 
sophers lost  in  the  hour-glass  sand  pouring  through  an 
open  Gate.* 

The  reader  must  also  be  given  a  sample  of  her 
powers  of  description.  Shall  it  be  the  account  of 
the  Carnival  in  decadent  Venice  ?  Shall  it  be  of  the 
great  '  silver-white  thunderheads '  rising  up  over  the 
rim  of  the  sea  off  Aboukir  Bay — Nelson  going  to 
fight  the  French.^  or  shall  it  be  Lady  Hamilton.^ 
or  the  legionaries  marching  into  Rome  in  the 
triumph  of  Titus?  It  is  impossible  to  choose,  but 
the  book  opens  at  the  Roman  incident.  I  accept 
the  omen  : — 

*  Morning  in  Rome ;  and  the  wholef  city  foams  out  to 
meet  it,  seething,  simmering,  surging,  sweeping.  All 
between  the  Janiculum  and  the  Palatine  is  undulating 
with  people.  Scarlet,  violet,  and  purple  togas  pattern 
the  mass  of  black  and  brown  .  .  .  What  is  that  sound? 
The  marble  city  shivers  to  the  treading  of  feet.  Caesar's 
legions  marching,  foot — foot — hundreds,  thousands  of 
feet.  They  beat  the  ground,  rounding  each  step  double. 
Coming — comings — cohort  after  cohort,  with  brazen 
trumpets  marking  the  time.  One — two — one — two, — 
laurel-crowned  each  one  of  you,  cactus-fibred,  harsh  as 
sand,  grinding  the  rocks  of  a  treeless  land,  rough  and 
salt  as  a  Dead  Sea  wind,  only  the  fallen  are  left  behind. 
Blood-red  plumes,   jarring  to  the  footfalls;    they  have 


AMY  LOWELL  269 

passed  through  the  gate,  they  are  in  the  walls  of  the 
mother  city,  of  marble  Rome.  Their  tunics  are  purple 
embroidered  with  gold,  their  armour  clanks  as  they  walk, 
the  cold  steel  of  their  swords  is  chill  in  the  sun,  each  is 
a  hero,  one  by  one,  endless  companies,  the  soldiers 
come.  Back,  to  Rome  with  a  victor* s  spoils,  with  a 
victor's  wreath  on  every  head,  and  Judah  broken  is  dead, 
dead  !  ''  lo  triumph e !  "  The  shout  knocks  and  breaks 
upon  the  spears  of  the  legionaries.  The  God  of  the  Jews 
is  overborne.  He  has  failed  his  people.  .  .  .  Slowly 
they  come,  the  symbols  of  a  beaten  religion  :  the  Golden 
Table  for  the  Shew-bread,  the  Silver  Trumpets  that 
sounded  the  Jubilee,  the  Seven-Branched  Candlestick, 
the  very  Tables  of  the  Law  which  Mbses  brought  down 
from!  Mount  Sinai.  Can  Jupiter  conquer  these?  Slowly 
they  pass,  glinting  in  the  sunlight,  staring  in  the  light 
of  day,  mocked  and  exhibited.  Lord  God  of  Hosts,  fall 
upon  these  people,  send  your  thunders  upon  them,  hurl 
the  lightnings  of  your  wrath  against  this  multitude,  raze 
their  marble  city  soi  that  not  one  stone  remain  standing. 
But  the  sun  shines  unclouded,  and  the  holy  vessels  pass 
onward  through  the  Campus  Martins,  through  the  Circus 
Flamininus,  up  the  Via  Sacra  to  the  Capitol.' 

Then  the  refrain  of  the  whole  poem  is  repeated, 
the  Motif  of  the  Bronze  horses  of  St.  Mark's,  a  re- 
frain that  sounds  through  the  din  of  the  chariot- 
races  of  Constantinople;  through  the  tinkling  of 
the  Carnival  in  Venice,  through  the  tramp  of 
Napoleon's  armies  of  Italy. 

*  The  bronze  horses  look  into  the  brilliant  sky,  they 
trot  slowly  without  moving,  they  advance  slowly,  one 
foot  raised.  There  is  always  another  step — one,  and 
another.  How  many  does  not  matter,  so  that  each  is 
taken.' 

The  passage  I  have  quoted  is  surely  an  extra- 
ordinary torn  de  force,  but  it  is  a  tour  de  force  of 


270       SHORT   STUDIES  OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

which,  in  a  hundred  variations,  Miss  Lowell  seems 
endlessly  capable.  The  passages  about  Venice  are 
as  distinguished  and  appropriate  as  those  which 
bring  Rome  before  us  : — < 

*  Beautiful,  faded  city.  The  sea  wind  has  dimmed 
your  Oriental  extravagance  to  an  iris  of  rose,  and  amber, 
and  lilac.  ...  A  tabernacle  set  in  glass,  an  ivory  orna- 
ment resting  upon  a  table  of  polished  steel.  It  is  the 
surface  of  the  sea,  spangled,  crinkled,  engine-turned  to 
whorls  of  blue  and  silver,  ridged  in  waves  of  flower- 
green  and  gold.* 

Has  the  reader  noticed  the  interesting  effect  of 
the  rhymes  in  the  longest  of  the  three  passages 
quoted.'^  Miss  Lowell  says  in  her  preface  that  she 
is  not  yet  satisfied  that  their  printing  as  ordinary 
prose  is  satisfactory;  in  this  I  entirely  agree  with 
her.  The  effect  is  puzzling  if  an  attempt  is  made  to 
read  the  passages  aloud,  and  this  is,  of  course,  the 
proper  way  to  appreciate  this  type  of  bravura  work. 

'  Can  Grande's  Castle  '  is  an  intoxicating  piece  of 
writing  and  deserves  to  be  better  known. 


CHARLOTTE  MEW. 

Those  whom  we  may,  with  only  a  little  exaggera- 
tion call  adherents  of  the  '  Flat  School'  of  Poetry 
have  gained  a  great  deal  by  their  renunciation. 
Their  effects  are  achieved  by  a  great  economy  of 
language — literal  as  v/ell  as  metaphorical,  for  their 
poems  are  generally  short — by  a  certain  metrical 
chastity,  and  by  reliance  on  the  poignancy  of  the 


CHARLOTTE  MEW  271 

t  commonplace  if  the  object  be  narrative,  and  by  the 

I  beauty  of  the  ordinary  if  the  object  be  landscape  or 

I  symbolical. 

Miss  Charlotte  Mew  is  of  this  school,  and  her 

[  work  shows  a  wonderful  degree  of  craftsmanship  : 
we  shall  hardly  ever  find  a  word  out  of  place  or 
weak.  She  very  rarely  either  uses  an  inversion  or 
allows  her  rhyme  to  steer  the  course  of  her  ship. 
Occasionally  her  emotion  is  exceedingly  poignant, 
especially  when  she  treats  the  idea — it  recurs  in 
several  of  the  poems — of  the  dreamlike  spell  which 

■  hangs  about  the  death  of  those  we  love  or  who 
are   familiar  to  us.      The  raw   grave,   the   broken 

I  fragment  of  a  flower,  cannot  be  the  reality  and  the 

'  sense  of  continued  companionship  the  illusion !  A 
poem  called  '  Beside  the  Bed,'  which  is  in  some 

\  sense  a  complement  of  another  entitled  '  In  Nun- 
head  Cemetery  '  will  give  the  reader  some  idea  of 
her  method  : — 

I  *  Someone  has  shut  the  shining"  eyes,  straig-htened  andi  folded 

I         The  wandering  hands  quietly  covering*  the  unquiet  breast : 

f     So,  smoothed  and  silenced  you  lie,  like  a  child,  not  again  to 

be  questioned  or  scolded ; 

But,  for  you,  not  one  of  us'  believes  that  this  is  rest. 

Not  so  to  close  the  windows  down  can  cloud  and  deaden 
The  blue  beyond  :   or  to  screen  the  wavering-  flame  subdue 

its  breath  : 
Why,  if  I  lay  my  cheek  to  your  cheek,  your  grey  lips,  like 

dawn  would  quiver  and  redden. 
Breaking  into  the  old,  odd  smile  at  this  fraud  of  death.* 

Very   often    she   writes   as    Crabbe  might   have 
written  if  he  had  been  born  in  an  age  when  free 


272       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

verse  had  loosed  the  bonds  of  narrative  poetry; 
now  and  then  as  Pope  might  have  written  in  the 
twentieth  century. 

There  is  a  poem  called  *  Madeleine  in  Church' 
which  reminds  one  of  the  passages  from  his  *  Eloisa 
and  Abelard  '  : — 

*  Here,  even,  in  this  corner  where  my  little  candle  shines 
And  overhead  the  lancet-window  glows 
With  gold  and  crimsons  you  could  almost  drink 
To  know  how  jewels  taste,  just  as  I  used  to  think 
There  was  the  scent  in  every  red  and  yellow  rose 
Of  all  the  sunsets.' 


*  Oh  !   I  know  Virtue,  and  the  peace  it  brings  ! 

The  temperate,  well-worn  smile 
The  one  man  gives  you,  when  you  are  evermore  his  own  : 
And  afterwards  the  child's,  for  a  little:  while, 

With  its  unknowing  and  all-seeing  eyes 
So  soon  to  change,  and  make  you  feel  how  quick' 
The  clock  goes  round.     If  one  had  learned  the  trick — 
(How  does  one  though?)     Quite  early  on. 
Of  green  pastures  under  placid  skies. 
One  might  be  walking  now  with  patient  truth, 
What  did  we  care  for  it,  who  asked  for  youth. 

When,  oh  !  my  God  !  this  is  going  or  has  gone?  ' 

The  whole  poem  is  a  remarkable  one,  full  of 
energy.  Miss  Mew  seems  to  have  caught  exactly 
the  point  of  view  of  the  sort  of  woman  she  describes, 
and  this  is  the  more  remarkable  because  in  '  The 
Farmer's  Bride,'  the  name-piece  of  her  book,  she 
has  mastered  and  understood  a  very  different  type 
of  sex-reaction  in  a  woman.  The  farmer — we  are 
given  him  in  a  few  lines — a  kind,  busy,  practical 


CHARLOTTE  MEW  273 

man,  marries  a  very  young  girl  who  is  as  shy  as  a 
levret : — 

*  When  us  was  wed  she  turned  afraid 
Of  love  and  me  and  all  things  human ; 
Like  the  shut  of  a  winter's  day. 
Hei^  smile  went  out,  and  'twasn't  a  woman — 
More  like  a  frightened  fay  ...  * 

But  Miss  Mew  does  not  take  up  a  conventional 
feminist  '  gross  male  '  attitude.  At  the  end  of  the 
poem  she  contrives  to  show  us  the  affair  from  the 
farmer's  point  of  view.  The  poem  is  full  of 
humanity  and  sympathy.  The  Nemesis  of  Miss 
Mew's  style  is  that  she  is  apt  to  become  prosaic. 
Very  often  the  reader  feels  that  her  thought  could 
have  been  more  easily  expressed  in  prose.  But  to 
those  who  value  strength,  poignancy,  and  economy 
her  poems  will  always  be  interesting.  Those  who 
already  admire  her  enough  to  study  and  re-read  her 
verse  are  those  who  will  find  her  most  worthy  to  be 
admired.  To  say  this  is  neither  to  praise  nor  to 
blame  but  to  state  a  fact.  For,  though  perhaps  no 
good  art  is  easy,  yet  poets  should  remember  that 
beauty — in  the  narrow  sense — remains  the  feather 
on  the  arrow,  or  the  cheese  in  the  mouse  trap. 


J.  C.  SQUIRE. 

If,  which  heaven  forbid !   we  had  to  characterise 
with  a  single  word  the  mental  attitudes  of  poets, 
I    that  word  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Squire  would  certainly 
be    detachment.      Now,   detachment   is   usually   a 


274       SHORT   STUDIES  OF   SOME  MODERN  POETS 

secondary  characteristic.  It  is  caused  by  a  quality 
in  the  mind  for  which  we  have  no  name  in  the 
intellectual  sphere,  but  which  in  its  social  mani- 
festation we  call  reserve  or  shyness.  Some  people 
seem  to  have  a  hedge  about  them  which  keeps  them 
at  a  distance  from  their  fellows  and  from  direct 
contact  with  life.  When  they  are  men  of  intellect 
like  Mr.  Squire,  and  the  quality  is  shown  only  in 
the  sphere  of  some  art,  they  are  perhaps  to  be  com- 
pared rather  to  men  standing  up  on  a  little  plat- 
form, such  as  is  used  by  the  umpire  at  lawn  tennis 
or  by  the  man  who  directs  wanderers  in  the  Maze 
at  Hampton  Court.  Such  v/riters  are  tempera- 
mentally onlookers,  and  we  shall  detect  in  their 
works  the  typical  faults  and  virtues  engendered  by 
their  position.  Why  such  men  find  themselves  on 
their  little  detached  points  of  vantage  I  do  not 
know,  very  often  I  think  because  of  an  unusual 
sensitiveness  and  an  early  realisation  of  men's 
follies  and  shortcomings.  They  shudder  away  from 
the  stupidity  and  insensitiveness  and  vulgarity  of 
such  yahoos,  and  later,  when  wisdom  has  come  to 
them,  they  are  never  quite  able  to  make  contact 
again.  Such  men  obviously  play  a  very  valuable 
part.  If  they  are  poets  or  artists  of  any  sort  it  is 
often  they  who  acquire  the  greatest  skill,  for  they  are 
not  detached  because  they  don't  feel  strongly,  but 
rather  because  they  do.  The  difficulty  comes  in  in 
the  expression  of  their  emotion.  Their  drums  are 
apt  to  be  muffled  drums,  and,  realising  how  difficult 
it  is  going  to  be  for  them  to  express  themselves, 
and  passionately  longing  to  do  so,  they  are  willing 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  275 

to  go  to  great  pains  in  acquiring  skill  for  the  attain- 
ment of  their  ends. 

There  will  be  another  effect  of  this  coolness  and 
detachment.  It  will  very  often  make  for  pro- 
ficiency in  a  certain  sort  of  humour — Mr.  Squire, 
for  instance,  is  perhaps  the  best  living  parodist — 
and  it  will  often  produce  a  fine  reasoning  and 
analytical  critic.  But  the  'straight'  expression  of 
emotion  is  to  such  temperaments  difficult.  When 
they  do  succeed  in  breaking  their  bonds,  however, 
we  get  something  exceedingly  beautiful,  like  Mr. 
Squire's  '  You  are  My  Sky.'  We  shall  hardly, 
however,  get  anything  bad  from  such  a  writer,  for 
he  will  possess  what  his  unconscious  instinctive  col- 
league will  not  possess — the  power  of  self-criticism. 
He  may  possibly  in  secrecy  write  badly,  but  I 
doubt  if  he  does,  I  doubt  if  he  even  thinks  badly; 
the  sloppy  or  the  otherwise  unworthy  is  nipped  in 
the  very  smallest  bud.  Actually,  Mr.  Squire's  sole 
lapse  is,  I  think,  '  The  Lily  of  Malud.' 

When  Mr.  Squire  has  a  long  poem  in  view  how 
does  he  set  about  his  work  ?  Let  us  take  for  in- 
stance '  The  Moon,'  as  perhaps  being  on  the  whole 
more  typical  than  either  '  Birds '  or  '  Rivers  '  and 
certainly  than  the  '  Lily  of  Malud.' 

Mr.  Squire  seems  to  have  sat  down  to  think  all 
the  things  it  is  possible  to  think  about  the  Moon 
and  then  determined  to  embody  those  thoughts  in 
a  form  and  style  which  would  unify  all  the  similes, 
epithets,  sense-impressions,  parallels  and  pro- 
phecies which  had  occurred  to  him.  A  reflective, 
low-toned  elegaic  note  is  sounded  throughout  the 


276       SHORT   STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

poem.  The  first  stanza  acquaints  the  reader  with 
the  atmosphere  in  which  Mr.  Squire  proposes  to 
make  his  effects  : — 

*  I  waited  for  a  miracle  tonight. 

Dim  was  the  earth  beneath  a  star-swept  sky, 
Her  boughs  were  vague  in  that  phantasmal  light, 

Her  current  rippled  past  invisibly. 
No  stir  was  in  the  dark  and  windless  meadows, 
Only  the  water,  whispering  in  the  shadows. 

That  darkened  nature  lived  did  still  proclaim. 
An  hour  I  stood  in  that  defeat  of  sight, 

Waiting,  and  then  a  sudden  silver  flame 

Burned  in  the  eastern  heaven,  and  she  came.* 

Mr.  Squire  has  used  his  verse  form  with  extra- 
ordinary accomplishment  and  subtlety.  Every 
rhyme  and  assonance  chimes  upon  the  ear  and 
gives  that  sense  of  roundness  and  completeness, 
that  impression  of  a  miniature  refrain  which  {^ace 
Milton,  and  Mr.  Flint)  is,  after  all,  best  produced 
by  rhyme.  The  sense  is  carried  on  from  stanza 
to  stanza  or  from  line  to  line  just  where  it  should 
be ;  it  is  broken  when  we  feel  the  need  of  a  pause. 
Mr.  Squire  twists  words  and  rhythms  as  he  will, 
the  stubbornness  they  show  in  other  hands  has 
gone.  The  phraseology  of  the  poem  never  startles 
the  reader  out  of  the  tranquil  mood  that  is  to  be 
evoked,  and  yet  never  allows  him  to  sink  into 
lethargy. 

In  many  ways  the  poem  is  a  pleasant  and  in- 
tended reminder  of  Young's,  Thomson's  or 
Cowper's  elegaic  style,  especially,  perhaps  in  the 
'  Last  Man '  motif  at  the  end  and  the  introduction 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  277 

of  historical  pieces  in  simile  or  in  episode.  The 
following  verse,  for  instance,  is  an  example  of  a 
more  successful  evocation  of  history  than  can  be 
produced  in  what  we  may  call  the  '  shrieks  of  an 
agonising  king  '  style. 

All  our  poor  history,  the  poet  says,  has  been 
unrolled  before  the  calm  eyes  of  Selene. 
Napoleon,  alone  in  the  night,  felt  rise  above 
him  : — 

*  The  ancient  ccmqueror^s  sloping,  smooth,  immense, 
Moon-pointing-  Pyramid *s  enduring  courses.' 

*  Restless,  he  knew  that  moon  who  watched  him  muse. 

Had  seen  a  restless  Caesar  brood  on  fame 
Amid  the  Pharoahs*  broken  avenues. 

And,  circling  round  that  fixed  monition,  came 
Woven  by  moonlight,  random,  transitory. 
Fragments  of  all  the  dim  receding  story  : 

The  moonlit  water  dripping  from  the  oars 
Of  triremes  in  the  Bay  of  Syracuse  ; 

The  opposing  bivouacs  upon  the  shores. 

That  knew  dead  Hector's  and  Achilles*  wars.' 

The  poem  concludes  with  an  excellent  '  end  of 
the  world  ' : — 

*  Pale  satellite,  old  mistress  of  our  fires, 

Who  has  seen  so  much  and  been  so  much  to  men. 
Symbol  and  goal  of  all  our  wild  desires. 

Not  any  voice  will  cry  upon  thee  then  ; 
Dreamer  and  dream,  they  will  have  all  gone  over, 
The  sick  of  heart,  the  singer  and  the  lover. 

An  end  there  will  have  been  to  all  their  lust, 
Their  sorrow,  and  the  sighing  of  their  lyres ; 

O  all  this  Life  that  stained  Earth's  patient  crust, 
Time's  dying  breath  will  have  blown  away  like  dust.' 


278       SHORT   STUDIES  OF  SOME   MODERN  POETS 

The  poem,  besides  being  a  tour  de  force  in  its 
sustained  unity,  is  exceedingly  agreeable  reading. 

As  we  might  expect  from  a  poet  who  is  also  a 
scholar  (almost  a  literary  collector)  Mr.  Squire  is 
often  very  good  at  half-historical,  half-scientific 
effects.  Take  the  following,  for  instance,  from 
'  Birds  '  :— 

*  Oh  let  your  strong  imagination  turn 

The  great  wheel  backwards  until  Troy  unburn, 
And  then  unbuild  and  seven  Troys  below 
Rise  out  of  death  and  dwindle  and  outflow, 
Till  all  have  passed  and  none  has  yet  been  there. 
Back,  ever  back. » 

'A  Far  Place,'  one  or  two  of  his  songs,  and  'To 
a  Bulldog,'  are  some  of  the  most  attractive  of  Mr. 
Squire's  poems,  but  personally  I  have  as  favourite 
the  beautiful  song  '  You  are  my  Sky  ' : — 

*  You  are  my  sky ;  beneath  your  circling  kindness 

My  meadows  all  take  in  the  light  and  grow ; 
Laugh  with  the  joy  you've  given, 
The  joy  youVe  given, 
And  open  in  a  thousand  buds,  and  blow. 

But  when  you  are  sombre,  sad,  averse,  forgetful, 
Heavily  veiled  by  clouds  that  brood  with  rain. 

Dumbly  I  lie  all  shadowed, 

I  lie  all  shadowed, 
And  dumbly  wait  for  you  to  shine  again.' 

But  Mr.  Squire  is  nothing  if  not  an  experimenter. 
His  latest  considerable  poem  is  an  account  of  the 
Oxford  V.  Cambridge  Rugby  Football  match.  The 
poem  is  a  moment-to-moment  diary  of  the  sense 
perceptions  and  fleeting  emotions  of  an  on-looker 


J.  C.  SQUIRE  279 

at  the  match.  It  is  written  colloquially  in  an  in- 
formal measure  with  occasional  rhyming.  Some  of 
the  best  lines  in  the  poem  are  about  the  crowd. 

It  might,  by  the  way,  be  instructive  to  study  the 
differences  between  Mr.  Squire's  and  Mr.  Mase- 
field's  treatment  of  the  onlookers  at  a  sporting 
event : 

*  Oh,  Lord,  !     What  an  awful  crush  !     There  are  faces  pale 
And  strained,  and  faces  with  animal  grins  advancing. 
Stuck  fast  around  mine.     We  move,  we  pause  again 
For  an  age,  then  a  forward  wave  and  another  stop. 
The  pressure  might  squeeze  one  flat.    Dig  heels  into  ground, 
For  this  white  and  terrified  woman  whose  male  insists 
Upon  room  to  get  back.     Why  didn't  I  come  here  at  one? 
Why  come  here  at  all?    What  strange  little  creatures  we 

are,  • 

Wedged  and  shoving  under  the  contemptuous  sky  ! 
•X-  *  -X-  -x-  -x- 

All  things  have  stopped  ;  the  time  will  never  go  by ; 
We  shall  never  get  in  !  .  .  .  Yet  through  the  standing  glass 
The  sand  imperceptibly  drops,  the  inexorable  laws 
Of  number  work  also  here.  .  .  .' 

The  reader  notes  the  detachment.  Mr.  Squire 
does  not  in  the  least  mind  the  accusation  of  being  a 
moralising  Jacques,  and  has  in  this  poem  written 
that  which  many  modern  poets  would  have  been 
afraid  to  write  and  will  be  shy  to  read.  This  in  my 
mind  is  a  sign  of  strength  in  Mr.  Squire,  and  of 
weakness  in  those  who  will  be  shocked.  Very  effec- 
tive in  the  poem  is  the  alternate  sense  in  the  narra- 
tor of  identity  with  the  crowd  and  of  separation 
from  it.  The  onset  of  the  early  winter  twilight, 
with  the  air  grown  blue  and  misty  and  the  players 


28o       SHORT   STUDIES  OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

only  seen  dimly  as  they  drift  away  to  a  distant 
corner,  matches  lit  by  men  in  the  stands  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  ground  beginning  to  show  up 
as  little  yellow  spurts  of  flame — all  this  is  admirably 
L^iven,  with  its  psychological  consequences. 

At  the  end  of  the  poem  I  think  Mr.  Squire  makes 
a  mistake.  He  takes  the  implicit  comment  of  the 
early  part  of  the  poem  a  step  further,  and  gives  us 
not  the  fragmentary  fleeting  thoughts  which  were  so 
effective  earlier,  but  a  whole  slab  of  comment.  I 
think  he  should  have  left  this  to  the  reader's 
imagination  and  not  stated  it,  for  it  was  all  se- 
questered in  what  he  had  written  before.  We 
should  have  got  there  all  right,  and  now,  by  stating 
his  comment  in  so  many  w^ords,  he  has  taken  the 
fine  edges  off  it ;  he  has  tried  to  state  what  is  really 
an  attitude  of  mind  too  plainly,  and  has  foregone 
the  magic  of  poetry  which  he  had  used  fully  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  poem — its  power  of  expressing 
the  inexpressible. 

I  wish  space  allowed  me  to  draw  the  reader's 
attention  more  fully  to  the  fascinating  qualities  of 
'  Winter  Nighfall,'  with  its  intriguing  use  of  asson- 
ance, rhyme  and  repetition,  or  '  Meditation  in 
Lamplight '  (a  good  example  of  the  category  type 
of  poem  of  which  Mr.  Squire  is  so  fond),  to  the 
beautiful  Chinese  effects  of  '  Fen  Landscape,'  and 
to  the  perpetual  delights  of  that  most  beautiful 
poem,  '  A  Far  Place,' 


EDMUND   BLUNDEN  28 1 


EDMUND  BLUNDEN. 

Mr.  Blunden  seemed  so  far  one  of  those  poets  who 
succeed  largely  by  reason  of  their  willingness  to 
limit  their  province.  He  gives  us  a  kind  of  poetic 
Petite  Culture.  No  mixed  farming  for  Mr.  Blun- 
den, he  will  not  disperse  himself  here  and  there, 
but  will  get  all  he  can  out  of  his  one  carefully-dug 
patch.  It  would  be  almost  possible  to  count  Mr. 
Blunden's  subjects  (and  his  unsuccessful  poems, 
too,  be  it  noted)  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  His 
work  is  singularly  direct.  His  landscape  is  that  of 
Kent  and  Sussex.  Hops,  mill-ponds,  oast-houses, 
streams,  and,  above  all,  fish  are  his  themes,  and 
he  almost  invariably  manages  to  make  his  readers 
visualise  these  objects  as  he  desires. 

*  The  wild-rose  bush  lets  loll 
Her  sweet-breathed  petals  on  the  pearl-smooth  pool, 
The  bream-pool  overshadowed  with  the  cool 
Of  oaks  where  myriad  mumbling  wings  patrol. 

Up  the  slow  stream  the  immemorial  bream 
(For  when  had  Death  dominion  over  them?) 
Through  green  pavilions  of  ghost  leaf  and  stem, 
A  conclave  of  blue  shadows  in  a  dream, 
Glide  on ;    idola  that  forgotten  plan, 
Incomparably  wise,  the  doom  of  man.* 

Such  is  the  note  of  most  of  his  poems ;  it  is  struck 
with  a  sure,  full  chime  in  Almswomen.  He  de- 
scribes how  two  old  women  love  and  depend  upon 
one  another,  '  like  true  loves  in  the  spring.' 


282       SHORT   STUDIES  OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

*  Long,  long  ago  they  passed  threescore-and-ten, 
And  in  this  doll's  house  lived  together  then  ; 
All  things  they  have  in  common,  being  so  poor, 

How  happy  go  the  rich  fair-v^eather  days 

When  on  the  roadside  folk  stare  in  amaze 

At  such  a  honeycomb  of  fruit  and  flowers 

As  mellows  round  their  threshold  ;   what  long  hours 

They  gloat  upon  their  steepling  hollyhocks, 

Bee*s  balsams,  feathery  southernwood,  and  stocks.' 

More  rarely,  but  with  as  sure  a  touch,  he  evokes  a 
mood,  as  in  Sickbed  or  in  Leisure,  where  he  writes  : 

*  Of  autumn  half-asleep  and  idly  playing 

With  fancies  as  they  chance. 
The  feather's  fall,  the  doomed  red  leaf  delaying, 
And  all  the  tiny  circumstance  of  peace.* 

Lately,  however — notably  in  Oxford  Poetry,  1921 
— he  shows  signs  of  extending  his  range  and  sub- 
ject. Before  Mr.  Blunden  writes  perfectly  of  his 
bit  of  country  and  grows  a  complete  interpreter,  he 
must  do  what  he  seems  to  be  striving  for — catch 
a  little  more  of  the  wantonness,  the  caprice,  the 
wildness,  that  storm,  sunrise,  and  moonset  give 
even  to  the  quietest  country-sides.  He  must  per- 
severe and  develop  the  vein  of  waywardness  that 
is  now  nearly  hidden.  He  has  at  present  too  much 
of  the  Thomson — the  Correct  Pastoral  attitude. 
He  might  at  any  moment  lapse  into  the  gentle- 
manly naturalist,  the  reader  feels.  We  almost  ex- 
pect some  phrase  of  *  the  market-place  o'erspread 
with  poor.'  Here  is  soil  from  which  smugness 
might  grow;   we  miss  a  sub-acidity,  a  tartness. 


EDMUND   BLUNDEN  28j 

This,  however,  is  to  cavil.  It  is  not  fair  to  com- 
mend Mr.  Blunden  for  concentration  and  then 
blame  him  for  lack  of  diversity.  And  within  his 
self-imposed  boundaries  his  work  is  satisfying,  and 
vigorously  simple.  Mr.  Blunden  is  not  only  a 
writer  of  a  very  high  order  of  talent,  he  is  a  poet, 
a  man  whose  work  illumines  and  interprets  that  of 
which  he  writes,  even  to  those  who  seemed  to  know 
it  best. 


JAMES  ELROY  FLECKER. 

James  Elroy  Flecker  was  what  we  might  call  an 
early-modern.  Superficially,  or  at  any  rate  tech- 
nically, he  did  not  depart  very  far  from  the  Vic- 
torian tradition.  In  style  his  chief  divergence  was 
one  of  diction,  while  in  metre  and  construction  he 
often  equals  the  Victorians  in  elaboration  and  sur- 
passed them  in  subtlety.  Even  in  diction  the 
changes  he  made  were  of  omission.  He  denied 
himself  on  the  one  hand  those  *  poetic '  words  which 
his  predecessor  had  overworked,  and  on  the  other 
the  many  markedly  prosaic  expressions  with  which 
his  successors  have  made  us  familiar  in  poetry. 
His  '  Ballad  of  the  Londoner '  may  stand  as  an 
example  of  his  use  of  words — though  indeed  it  is: 
also  typical  of  his  work  in  a  wider  sense. 

*  Evening-  falls  on  the  smoky  walls, 
And  the  railing's  drip  with  rain, 
And  I  will  cross  the  old  river 
To  see  my  g-irl  again. 


284       SHORT   STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

The  great  and  solemn-gliding  tram, 

Lovers  still  mysterious  car, 
Has  many  a  light  of  gold  and  white, 

And  a  single  dark  red  star. 

L  know  a  garden  in  a  street 

Which  no  one  ever  knew  ; 
I  know  a  rose  beyond  the  Thames, 

Where  flowers  are  pale  and  few. ' 

In  some  respects  how  perfectly  classical  this  is — 
how  consonant  with  tradition !  Indeed,  the  last 
two  lines  are  so  almost  comically  Wordsworthian 
that  we  feel  the  lady's  name  can  only  have  been 
Lucy.  And  yet  could  anyone  mistake  this  for  any- 
thing but  a  modern  poem.^  As  to  Flecker's  use  of 
unpoetic  objects  and  images — in  this  case  the  tram 
— it  is  easy  to  see,  but  hard  to  define  how  his 
lines  differ  from  what  Mr.  Huxley  on  the  one 
hand,  or  Swinburne  on  the  other,  would  have 
written.  Perhaps  we  notice,  first  of  all,  that 
Flecker  is  obviously  deeply  interested  in  what  a 
tram  at  night  is  really  like,  its  pictorial  effect,  and 
in  a  brilliant  line  he  gives  it : 

*  The  great  and  solemn-glidingt  tram.* 

But  Flecker  is  a  transitional,  and  he  is  therefore 
self-conscious  about  his  tram,  and  so  tries  to  prove 
its  fitness  to  figure  in  a  poem  by  calling  it  '  Love's 
still  mysterious  car/  He  is  in  fact  still  challenging 
the  people  who  see  a  tram,  not  as  a  fact,  but  as  a 
street  nuisance,  or  per  contra,  as  a  democratic  pub- 
lic conveyance.     But  then  his  pictorial  interest  re- 


JAMES  ELROY  FLECKER  285 

asserts  itself  and  again  one  sees  the  wet  sheen  of 
the  streets : 

*  Has  many  a  light  of  gold  and  white 
And  a  single  dark  red  star.' 

But  perhaps  the  boundaries  of  his  interest  are  even 
more  significant.  It  is  evidently  no  concern  of  his 
whether  the  tram  does  good  or  harm.  A  Victorian 
poet  would  have  felt  much  less  interest  in  what  the 
tram  looked  like  than  in  his  own  conception  of  it  as  : 

(i)  A  car  of  Juggernaut  defiling  God's  beauti- 
ful earth,  or  : 

(2)  The  triumphant  symbol  of  democracy. 

Yet  Flecker's  reaction  to  the  tram  would  not  be  in 
the  least  that  of  one  of  the  younger  poets  of  the 
present  day — Mr.  Golding,  Mr.  Rickward,  Mr. 
Hughes,  Mr.  Porter — they  would  never  have  put  in 
that  line  of  apology,  '  Love's  still  mysterious  car,' 
any  more  than  they  would  write  the  internal  rhyme 
in  the  first  line.  Consider,  for  example,  the  perfect 
sang  ffoid  with  which  Miss  Edith  Sitwell  writes 
about  trams.  But  fortunately,  the  fact  of  standing 
between  two  conventions  never  seriously  hampered 
Flecker.  His  genius  was  bold  and  copious,  and 
strong  enough  to  sweep  aside  technical  difficulties 
that  would  have  strangled  a  lesser  man.  Above 
all.  Flecker  was  one  of  those  beings  who  seem  to 
possess  a  peculiar  power  over  words.  It  is  argu- 
able that  he  did  not  understand  life  or  psychology 
as  well  as  his  successors  or  his  critics,  but  he  under- 
stood the  art  of  writing  much  more  profoundly. 


286       SHORT   STUDIES  OF   SOME   MODERN  POETS 

Perhaps  I  can  best  illustrate  his  power  over 
words  by  quoting  from  one  of  his  early  poems,  '  The 
Bridge  of  Fire/  It  is  a  poem  easy  to  criticise  for 
its  looseness  of  construction,  its  lack  of  overt  mean- 
ing, and  it  is  not,  of  course,  to  be  compared  to  his 
mature  work. 

In  this  poem  w^e  seem  to  see  a  young  mind  turn- 
ing over  and  caressing  the  rich  and  glorious  jewels 
of  antiquity  and  tradition.  Here  are  the  materials 
with  which  he  will  presently  build.  But  for  the 
present  he  is  content  to  let  them  run  through  his 
fingers.     He  sees  the  Gods  on  Heaven's  Bridge  : 

*  Robed  with  faint  seas  and  crowned  with  quiet  stars 
All  g^reat  Gods  dwell  to  whom  men  prayed  or  pray. 
No  winter  chills,  no  fear  or  fever  mars 

Their  grand  and  timeless  hours  of  pomp  and  play ; 
Some  drive  about  the  Rim  wind-golden  cars 
Or,  shouting,  laugh  Eternity  away. 

The  daughters  of  their  pride. 

Moon -pale,  blue-water-eyed, 
Their  flame-white  bodies  pearled  with  falling'  spray. 

Send  all  their  dark  hair  streaming 

Down  where  the  worlds  lie  gleaming,  ...  * 

He  tells  of  the  Greek  Gods  : 

*  The  Gods  whose  faces  are  the  morning  light, 
Of  they  who  love  the  leafy  rood  of  song. 

The  Gods  of  Greece,  dividing  the  broad  night. 
Have  gathered  on  the  Bridge,  of  all  that  throng 
The  fairest,  whether  he  whose  feet  for  flight 
Had  plumy  wings,  or  she  to  whom  belong 
Shadows,  Persephone,  or  that  swan-white 
Rose-breasted  island  lady,  gentle  and  strong,  .   .   .' 


JAMES  ELROY  FLECKER  28/ 

But  there  are  darker  Gods  : 

*  Belus  and  Ra  and  that  most  jealous  Lord 

Who  ruled  the  hosts  of  Pharoah  in  the  sea,  .   .   .' 

*  Gods  who  take  veng-eancc,  gods  who  grant  reward, 
Gods  who  exact  a  murdered  devotee, 

Brahma  the  kind,  and  Siva  the  abhorred 
And  they  who  tend  Ygdrasil,  the  big  tree. 

And  I  sis,  the  young  moon, 

And  she  of  the  piping  tune, 
Her  Phrygian  sister,  cruel  Cybele, 

And  Orpheus  the  lone  harp-player 

And  Mithras  the  man-slayer. 
And  Allah  rumbling  on  to  victory, 

And  some,  the  oldest  »>f  them  all, 
Square  heads  that  leer  and  lust,   and  lizard  shapes  that 

crawl.  * 

Though  perhaps  we  ought  to  deny  to  this  the  title 
of  '  great  poetry/  because  it  has  neither  deep  emo- 
tion or  particularly  profound  thought  behind  it,  we 
must  yet  admit  that  it  is,  like  the  more  mature  '  Pil- 
lage,' the  most  gorgeous  word  magic.  I  suppose 
'  Pillage  '  is  the  most  highly-finished  and  highly- 
polished  piece  of  decorative  writing  that  the  modern 
movement  has  given  us.  Few  of  us  who  have 
fallen  under  its  spell  will  forget  the  sense  of  intoxi- 
cation that  first  reading  brought  with  it.  Here  is 
the  last  verse  : 

*  No  more  when  the  trumpeter  calls  shall  we  feast  in  the 

white-light  halls ; 
For  stayed  are  the  soft  footfalls  of  the  moon-browed  bearers 

of  wine, 


288       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

And  lost  are  the  statues  of  Kings  and  of  Gods  with  great 

glorious  wings, 
And  an  empire  of  beautiful  things,  and  the  lips  of  the  love 

who  was  mine.' 

But  perhaps  more  lasting,  because  perhaps  more 
subtle,  are  the  opening  lines  of  *  Santorin,*  one  of 
the  few  pieces  of  free  verse  that  Flecker  wrote  : 

*  Who  are  you,  Sea  Lady, 
And  where  in  the  seas  are  w^e? 
I  have  too  long  been  steering 
By  the  flashes  in  your  eyes. 
Why  drops  the  moonlight  through  my  heart, 
And  why  so  quietly 
Go  the  great  engines  of  my  boat 
As  if  their  souls  were  free?  ' 

Our  wonder  at  the  sense  of  glamour  it  has  evoked 
will  perhaps  be  succeeded  by  surprise  at  the  extra- 
ordinary impression  of  smoothness  which  so  free  a 
measure  has  been  made  to  give  us.  It  is  easy 
enough,  of  course,  to  see  where  the  rhymes  occur, 
but  they  seem  to  be  introduced  according  to  no 
regular  scheme;  there  appears  to  be  no  fixed 
cadence  (compare  the  lines  I  have  quoted  of  Miss 
Amy  Lowell's  *  Patterns  '),  there  seems  to  be  no 
fixed  plan  in  the  length  of  the  lines  and  the  num- 
bers of  the  syllables.  It  is,  I  think,  a  poem  which 
we  might  very  well  adduce  as  a  proof  of  the  truth 
of  some  of  the  allegations  that  I  made  in  the  chap- 
ter on  Metre  and  Prosody. 

I  must  in  conclusion  warn  the  new  reader  that 
he  must  not  form  an  opinion  of  Flecker's  poems 
from  the  fragments  I  have  quoted.     Flecker,  much 


JAMES  ELROY  FLECKER  289 

more  than  his  successors,  wrote  his  poems  as  wholes, 
and  to  take  an  extract  is  usually  an  act  of  violence. 
I  hope,  at  any  rate,  that  I  have  shown  that 
Flecker  was  not,  as  has  sometimes  been  said,  the 
poet  with  the  modern ,  content  and  the  Victorian 
manner.  Perhaps  his  detachment  is  one  of  his 
most  marked  characteristics.  He  excluded  with 
wonderful  success  all  that  had  become  impossible, 
that  had  been  worked  to  death  in  the  Victorian 
method,  and  yet  wasted  no  time  in  '  breaking  with 
tradition,'  being  so  sure  of  himself  that  he  could 
pass  straight  to  creation,  clear  in  his  individuality, 
fearing  neither  the  old  nor  the  new.  I  think  that 
his  reputation  will  grow  with  the  years  as  Keats' 
reputation — probably  even  smaller  at  the  time  of 
his  death  than  Flecker's — grew,  until  they  will  both 
be  secure  in  the  possession  of  all  those  minds  which 
can  love  the  sheer  beauty  of  words  and  word- 
images  for  their  own  sakes,  and  without  an  arriere 
pensee  of  regret  for  an  absent  psychological  reve- 
lation. 


RUPERT  BROOKE 

Rupert  Brooke  was  certainly  at  one  time  the  most 
discussed  poet  of  the  modern  movement.  A 
romantic  and  untimely  death  cut  him  off  from  what 
promised  to  be  a  sustained  productiveness,  and 
every  poem  of  his  lamentably  small  output  has  been 
thoroughly  considered  and  commented  upon — 
turned  this  way  and  that — by  poets  and   critics. 


290      SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

Unlike  that  of  the  majority  of  modern  poets, 
Brooke  s  reputation  has  suffered  from  a  good  deal 
of  rather  uncritical  admiration,  than  which  there  can^ 
be  nothing  more  damaging,  and  consequently  at 
the  moment  there  is  perhaps  a  tendency  to  under 
estimate  his  great  powers  and  his  greater  promise. 
For  m  spite  of  his  scholarship  and  his  remark- 
able acomplishment  as  a  versifier,  immaturity  seems 
to  me  the  outstanding  characteristic  of  Brooke's 
work.  His  was  probably  one  of  those  minds  and 
certainly  one  of  those  characters  which  mature  late. 
Not  only  too  was  he  personally  young,  but  his  work 
was  the  product  of  the  extreme  youth  of  a  move- 
ment. Brooke  had  neither  personal  nor  traditional 
roots.  We  feel  all  the  time  that  he  is  making  an 
effort  to  keep  his  balance.  There  is  hardly  a  poem 
of  his  which  does  not  show,  as  well  as  the  charm, 
the  self-consciousness  of  immaturity : 

*  Hot  through  Troy's  ruin  Menelaus  broke 
To  Priam's  palace  sword  in  hand,  to  sate 
On  that  adulterous  whore  a  ten  years'  hate 
And  a  king's  honour.    Through  red  death  and  smoke, 
And  cries,  and  then  by  quieter  ways  he  strode, 
Till  the  still  innermost  chambers  fronted  him. 
He  swung  his  sword,  and  crashed  into  the  dim 
Luxurious  bower,  flaming  like  a  god. 

High  sat  white  Helen,  lonely  and  serene. 

He  had  not  remembered  that  she  was  so  fair, 

And  that  her'  neck  curved  down  in  such  a  way ; 

And  he  felt  tired.     He  flung  the  sword  away. 
And  kissed  her  feet,  and  knelt  before  her  there, 

The  perfect  Knight  before  the  perfect  Queen.* 

The  choice  of  such  a  subject  was  vain,  the  poet  has 


RUPERT  BROOKE  29 1 

no  more  got  away  from  himself  than  he  did  in 
'  Granchester  '  or  *  Channel  Crossing/ 

Now  self-consciousness  in  the  poet  is  very 
apt  to  have  much  the  same  effect  upon  the  reader 
as  has  shyness  in  an  interlocutor.  In  some  subtle 
way  it  makes  us  not  only  restless  and  uncom- 
fortable, but  unduly  critical.  The  poet,  we  feel,  is 
being  self-assertive  and  mannered  and,  though  we 
know  it  is  from  fright,  it  has  its  effect  nevertheless. 
However,  the  fault  luckily  by  no  means  spreads 
itself  over  Brooke's  entire  output.  For  instance, 
though  the  self-consciousness  is  there,  it  does  not 
obtrude  itself  in  what  I  consider  to  be  one  of 
Brooke's  most  delightful  poems,  '  Dining  Room 
Tea.' 

A  party  of  intimates  are  sitting  at  tea,  laughing 
and  talking.  Suddenly  the  poet  experiences  a 
sensation  of  isolment,  a  sensation  with  which  we 
are  all  of  us  probably  familiar  in  some  form.  The 
whole  scene  suddenly  becomes  static,  and  at  the 
same  time  he  becomes  aware  of  a  sort  of  inner 
meaning  in  it  all.  What  this  inner  meaning  may 
be  he  naturally  does  not  state;  that  would  be  im- 
possible, it  can  only  be  apprehended  by  a  mind 
illuminated  by  the  vision  : 

*  I  saw  the  marble  cup  ;   the  tea, 
Hungi  on  the  air,  an  amber  stfeaml; 
I  saw  the  fire's  unglittering  gleam, 
The  painted  flame,  the  frozen  smoke. 
No  more  the  flooding  lamplight  broke 
On  flying  eyes  and  lips  and  hair ; 
But  lay,  but  slept  unbroken  there, 


292       SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

On  stiller  flesh,  and  body  breathless, 
And  lips  and  laughter  swayed  and  deathless, 
And  words  on  which  no  silence  grew. 
Light  was  more  alive  than  you. ' 

Alas!  that  Brooke  did  not  live  so  that  his  force 
might  have  grown  into  strength,  his  irritability  into 
humour,  his  irony  into  wit,  his  charm  into  a  majes- 
tic beauty.  Everything  in  the  turn  that  the  poetic 
movement  has  taken  would  have  served  to  ripen 
and  mature  Brooke's  genius. 


ROBERT    NICHOLS. 

Mr  .Robert  Nichols'  virtues  are  many.  Oftener 
than  his  reader  has  a  right  to  expect — for  every 
poet  has  a  fixed  allowance  of  failures  per  successful 
set  of  verses — he  achieves  limpidity,  perfect  poetic 
fusion.  In  a  great  deal  of  the  poetry  that  we  are 
quite  ready  to  enjoy,  the  thought  and  the  medium 
remain  as  it  were  distinct.  Throw  a  pinch  of  salt 
into  a  tumbler  of  water,  and  for  a  moment  the 
grains  sink  visibly;  there  is  salt,  there  is  water, 
but  in  another  moment  there  is  salt-water.  Mr. 
Nichols'  '  The  Sprig  of  Lime  '  and  '  Night  Rhap- 
sody '  are  salt  water.  They  and  some  fragments  of 
other  poems  approach  perfection.  Therefore  it  is 
that  Mr.  Nichols'  work  must  be  judged  by  absolute 
standards.  When  a  poet  has  attained  to  a  certain 
mastery,  we  can  no  longer  soothe  our  aesthetic  con- 
sciences by  saying  that  his  work  is  marvellously 
good  for,  say,  a  first-lieutenant  or  a  bombardier, 


ROBERT  NICHOLS  293 

excuses  with  which  the  critic — sated  with  blood — 
is  apt  to  disguise  the  lenient  judgments  of  lazi- 
ness. We  must  begin  to  ask  ourselves  why  each 
particular  poem  misses  perfection.  We  must  in- 
quire why,  though  we  read  and  re-read  an  individual 
poem,  the  grains  are  still  visible ;  we  must  ask  what 
quality  is  it  that  keeps  them  in  suspension. 

What  are  Mr.  Nichols'  faults.^  They  are  many 
and  diverse.  Sometimes  the  difficulty  is  that  his 
grains  of  salt  belong  to  somebody  else.  For  ex- 
ample, in  '  The  Deliverer,'  as  they  sink  down  to 
the  bottom  of  the  tumbler,  they  spell  '  John  Mase- 
field  '  and  '  Lascelles  Abercrombie.'  In  the  six- 
teenth sonnet  to  Aurelia,  the  legend  is  '  Rupert 
Brooke/  There  has  been  very  little  assimilation. 
We  can  find  the  very  sonnet,  '  Helen  and  Mene- 
laus  II ' : 

*  And  you  poor  drivelling,  disregarded  crone, 
Bide  blinking  at  memory  between  drowsy  fits.' 

*  Oft  she  weeps,  gummy-eyed  and  impotent. ' 

A  different  fault  is  his  ability  to  write  slovenly 
verse.  For  example,  in  '  Two  Friends,  Two 
Nights,'  the  thought  is  a  sound  one,  but  it  has  not 
been  hammered  out.  Mr.  Nichols  has  been  con- 
tent with  a  poem  before  it  was  half  forged.  The 
fault  is  not  in  individual  lines,  but  in  conception. 
Perhaps  the  key  to  this  trouble  lies  in  a  certain 
vanity,  a  certain  egotism  which  Mr.  Nichols  dis- 
plays naively  enough  in  some  of  his  poems.  Every 
now  and  then  he  produces  the  impression  of  fling- 
ing a  piece  of  work  at  the  reader  and  saying,  '  This 


294      SHORT  STUDIES  OF  SOME  MODERN  POETS 

is  a  poem  by  Robert  Nichols ;  read  and  be  thank- 
ful/ It  is  a  fault  of  taste,  for  it  is  arguable  that 
no  one  human  bemg  is  much  more  egotistical  than 
another;  merely  some  men  have  skill  enough  to 
hide  the  long  ears  of  our  common  nature. 

Lastly,  he  has  too  little  sense  of  hurriour,  that  last 
fairest  blossom  of  a  sense  of  proportion.  Satire  in 
his  hands  might,  the  reader  imagines,  become  in- 
vective— it  would  never  become  banter.  It  might 
be  terrible,  but  it  would  not  be  amusing. 

But  all  these  are  the  faults  of  youth,  and,  with 
some  of  its  faults,  Mr.  Nichols  has  all  of  its  virtues. 
He  is  adaptable,  he  is  resourceful,  he  is  restlessly 
eager  to  try  new  methods,  to  pour  his  soul  into  an 
unaccustomed  vessel.  He  has  force,  eloquence, 
fire,  and  passion,  and  he  has  a  ternbiliia  which  will 
remind  the  reader  of  Donne,  in  whose  work  Mr. 
Nichols  has  obviously  steeped  himself,  though  he 
does  not  imitate  him. 

He  has  considerable  power  of  characterisation. 
For  example,  the  charming  conversation  between 
the  poet  and  his  friend,  Mr.  Robert  Graves,  called 
'  Winter  Overnight.' 

Very  different,  again,  is  '  The  Flower  of  Flame,' 
in  the  first  two  verses  of  which  we  have — to  pursue 
our  original  analogy — another  salt-water  poem,  one 
in  which  fusion  is  perfect : 

*  As  round  the  cliff  I  came  alone 
The  whole  bay  bared  its  blaze  to  me  ; 
Loud  sung:  the  wind,  the  wild  sun  shone, 
The  tumbled  cloudsi  fled  scattering  on, 
Light  shattered  on  wave  and  winking  stone.' 


ROBERT  NICHOLS  295 

'  The  Sprig  of  Lime  '  was  among  the  first  of 
his  reflective  poems.  Perhaps  some  readers  may 
feel  that  the  later  '  Night  Rhapsody  '  is  almost  more 
exquisite  : 

*  How  beautiful  it  is  to  wake  at  nig^ht, 
When  over  all  there  reigns  the  ultimate  spell 
Of  complete  silence,  darkness  absolute, 
To  feel  the  world,  tilted  on  axle-tree. 
In  slow  gyration,  with  no  sensible  sound. 
Unless  to  ears  of  unimagined  beings, 
Resident  incorporeal  or  stretched 
In  vigilance  of  ecstasy  among 
Ethereal  paths  and  the  celestial  maze. 
The  rumour  of  our  onward  course  now  brings 
A  steady  rustle,  as  of  some  strange  ship* 
Darkling  with)  soundless  sail  all  set  and  amply  filled 
By  volume  of  an  ever-constant  air. 
At  fullest  night,  through  seas  for  ever  calm, 
Swept  lovely  and  unknown  for  ever  on. 

How  beautiful  to  wake  at  night. 

Within  the  room  grown  strange,  and  still,  and  sweet, 

And  live  a  century,  while  in  the  dark 

The  dripping  wheel  of  silence  slowly  turns.  * 

There  never  lived  a  poet  who  would  not  have  been 
proud  to  have  written  such  lines.  They  have 
achieved  completeness,  they  have  an  independent 
life  of  their  own. 


INDEX 

Titles  of  Poems  and  Books  are  in  italics. 


Abercrombie,  Lascelles,  12,  20. 
Abraham  Lincoln^  191. 
Aforetime f  219. 
Ainley,  Henry,  237. 
Aldington,  Richard,  139. 
Alexander's  Feast^  92. 
AlmswomeUy  281. 
AmoreSy  213. 
Animula^  250. 
Ann,  121. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  9,  140,  i86. 
Augustf  igi4i  248. 

B 

Bailey,  John,  125. 

Ballad  of  the  Londoner ^  283. 

Baring,  Maurice,  75. 

Barnefield,  Richard,  79. 

Barrie,  Sir  James,  218. 

Baudelaire,  11. 

Beggar's  Opera,  The^  79,  80. 

Behaviourists,  The,  35. 

Berdan,  Professor,  163. 

Berners,  Lord,  79. 

Beside  the  Bed,  271. 

Birds,  The,  19,  278. 

Black  Horse  Lane,  216. 

Bliss,  Arthur,  81. 

Blunden,  E.,  16,  281-283. 

Board  of  Education,  The,  iii. 

Bottomley,  Gordon,  129,  219,  222-229. 

Bridge  of  Fire,  The,  286,  287. 

Britain's  Daughter,  226. 

Brooke,  Rupert,  289-292. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  151. 

Browning,  Robert,  53,  185. 

Byron,  Lord,  76,  132,  133. 


Cadenced  Verse,  73. 

Campbell,  J.,  12. 

Campbell,  Thomas,  136. 

Can  Grande's  Castle,  45,  139,  267. 

Caves  of  Auvergne,  The,  231. 

Characters  of  Women,  42. 

Chaucer,  163. 

Claptrap,  11. 

Cliches,  20. 

Coleridge,  132,  252. 

Collected  Parodies,  222. 

Come  Unto  These  Yellow  Sands,  253. 

Congo,  The,  234,  235,  236. 

Contemplation  of  Life,  233. 

Coquelin,  M.,  237. 

Cornford,  Francis,  81. 

D 

Danae,  220. 

Dauber,  20,  85,  135. 

Decoratives,  The,  55. 

Defence  of  Poesie,  167,  183. 

De  la  Mare,  Walter,  117,  121,  252-256. 

De  Luxe,  241. 

De  Quincey,  267. 

Didactics,  The,  55. 

Dining  Room  Tea,  291. 

Dock,  The,  255. 

Don  Juan,  130. 

Donne,  John,  261. 

Dream  of  Fair  Women,  The,  25. 

Drinkwater,  John,  191. 

Dryden,  John,  15,  17,  92,  166. 

Dunciad,  The,  203. 

E 

Edward  the  Confessor,  207. 
Emigration,  The,  264. 
End,  The,  264. 


298 


INDEX 


Endymion,  84. 

Enslavedy  247. 

Ethics,  53. 

Euripides,  175. 

Everlasting  Mercy y  They  84,  135. 


Fife  Gallantej  264. 

Flat  School,  The,  270. 

Flaubert,  91. 

Flecker,  James  Elroy,  7,  238-289. 

Flint,  Mr.  155,  156,  157,  159,  161,  186. 

Flower  of  Flame,  294. 

Four  Ages  of  Poetry ,  179. 

Frankau,  Gilbert,  76. 

Fraser,  Sir  James,  256. 

Freeman,  John,  8. 

Freud,  Sigmund,  35. 

Full  Fathom  Five,  252. 


Gahaiziy  203. 
Gibson,  W.  W.,  23,  135. 
Glamour^  207. 

Golden  Whales  of  California,  The,  245. 
Golding,  Louis,  285. 
Goossens,  Eugene,  79,  80. 
Gorgeous  Poetry,  200. 
Gosse,  Edmund,  157. 
Grauch,  225. 
Graves,  C.  L.,  206. 
Graves,  Robert,  7,  23,  45,  47,  49,  147, 
198,  199,205,214-217,251. 

H 

Hebrew  Form,  The,  75. 

Helen  and  Menelaus,  290,  293. 

Hind  and  the  Panther,  17,  18. 

Hodgson,  Ralph,  18. 

Hound  of  Heaven,  The,  18. 

Hounds  of  Hell,  The,  248. 

Housman,  A.  E.,  10. 

Hueffer,  Ford  Maddox,  96,  186,  198. 

Hughes,  Richard,  285. 

Huxley,  Aldous,  16. 

I 

Island  of  Youthy  The,  19,  260,  262. 


J.B.M.,  200. 
Jim  Jayy  122. 
Johnson,  Dr.,  13, 14,  54,  loi,  166,  172, 

173,  i74»  i75»  176. 
Jonson,  Ben,  118. 
Jowett,  Mr.,  206. 

K 

Karsavina,  Tamara,  30,  31. 
Keats,  18,  43,  85,  89,  130. 
King  Lear's  Wife,  222,  228. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  203. 
Knox,  E.  v.,  201,  202. 
Komisarjevsky,  M.,  223. 


Lawrence,  D.  H.,  12,  211-214. 

Lear,  Edward,  123,  239. 

Leisure y  282. 

Lemmings,  The,  251. 

Lily  of  Malud,  The,  275. 

Lindsay,  Vachel,  79,  201,  233-239,  245. 

Losing  a  Slave  Girly  258. 

Lot's  Wifey  211. 

Lowell,  Amy,  45,  73,  266-270. 

Lord  Lucas,  In  Memoriam  to. 

M 

Macaulay,  181. 

Machethy  29. 

Macbeth,  Lady,  225. 

Madeleine  in  Church,  272. 

Maeterlinck,  222,  229. 

Man  of  Ross,  17,  18. 

Marlowe,  58. 

Masefield,  John,  7,  12,  18,  20,  82,  84, 

129,  134,  246-250. 
Medea,  220. 

Metaphysics,  3,  32,  61,  186. 
Mew,  Charlotte,  17,  193,  270-273. 
Midsummer  Eve,  224. 
Milton,  John,  11,  17,  53,  58,  59,  132. 
Montessori,  Mme,  11 1. 
Moon,  The,  275. 
Moore,  Sturge,  9,  19,  20,  82,  140,  146, 

217-250. 
Morality,  8,  11. 


INDEX 


299 


Munro,  Harold,  142,  146,  192,  193, 

194,  195,  196,  254. 
Murry,  Middleton,  142. 

N 
Nero,  207. 
New  Voices,  74. 
Nichols,  Robert,  23,  292-295. 
Night  Rhapsody,  295. 
No  Plays,  The,  258. 
Noyes,  Alfred,  197. 


Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  43,  89. 
Old  Woman,  The,  12. 
Oxford  V.   Cambridge  Rugby  Foot- 
ball Match,  278. 
Oundle,  113. 

P 

Paradise  Lost,  20,  58. 

Paris  and  Helen,  19,  23,  208,  230,  231. 

Patterns,  73. 

Peacock  Thomas,  166,  179,  181,  182. 

Philip  the  King,  248. 

Pictorial  Arts,  189. 

Pike,  The,  i6. 

Pillage,  287. 

PoChuI,86,  257. 

Poetic  Diction,  266. 

Poetic  Drama,  The,  248,  258. 

Pompey  the  Great,  247. 

Pope,  15,  17,  42. 

Porter,  Alan,  285. 

Pound,  Ezra,  24,  207. 

Powers  of  the  Air,  The,  218. 

Prosody,  70,  76. 

Psychology,  4,  6,  24,  64,  185,  188. 


Queen  of  China,  The,  19,  20,  260. 

R 

Realistic  Drama,  The,  258. 
Renan,  182,  183. 
Reynard  the  Fox,  20,  151. 
Richardson,  Miss  D.,  241. 
Rickword,  E.,  285. 
Right  Royal,  134. 


Rivers,  Augustine,  204. 
Roxburgh,  J.  F.,  131,  133. 
Rule  Britannia,  78. 
Ruskin,  50. 
Russell,  Bertrand,  4,  35. 

S 

Sanderson,  F.  W.,  67,  113. 

Santa  F4  Trail,  The^  238. 

Santorin,  288. 

Sassoon,  Siegfried,  7,  17. 

Serenade,  245. 

Sewing  Basket,  They  47. 

Sex,  II,  16,  212. 

Shakespeare,  29,  30,  54,  58,  172,  175, 

176,  177,  178,  182, 252. 
Shanks,  E.,  19,  20,  259-266. 
Shaw,  G.  B.,  9,  95,  173. 
Sheherazada,  95,  102. 
Shelley,  18,  83,  88,  179,  183,  185. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  167,  168,  170,  172. 
Sit  well,  Edith,  23,  240-246,  285. 
Sitwell,  Osbert,  23,  24,  240-246. 
Sitwell,  Sacheverell,  23,  240-246. 
Solecisms,  9. 
Spencer,  E.,  97,  130,  166. 
Squire,  J.  C,  19,  20,  139,  142,  190, 

191,  192,  200,  273-280. 
Statue  and  the  Bust,  53. 
Stevenson,  50,  51,55,  97. 
Sunken  Garden,  The,  253. 
Swinburne,  15,  50. 
Symbolism,  46,  47,  62,  65. 
Synthesis,  5. 


Tanglewood  Tales,  The,  123. 

Tanka,  The,  86,  87. 

Tennyson,  9,  11,  24,  50,  53,  261. 

Thompson,  Francis,  18. 

Tithonus,  72. 

To  a  Talkative  Guest,  257. 

Tragic  Mothers,  219,  220,  227. 

Trams,  244. 

Translations  from  the  Chinese,  85. 

Truth  about  the  Russian  Dancers, 

The,  218. 
Turner,  W.  J.,  17,  19,  20,  23,  205,  208, 

229-233,  251. 


300 


Venice^  270. 
Vibrist,  243. 
Virgil,  181. 
Voltaire,  176. 


W 

Waley,  Arthur,  85,  212,  257-259. 
Wheels^  204,  240. 
Whitehead,  Professor,  66. 
Wilcox,  E.  W.,  124. 


INDEX 


Wilkinson,  Marguerite,  73,  146,  147, 

197. 
Winter  Nightfall,  280. 
Wooden  Pegasus,  The,  240,  244. 
Word  Association,  46,  47. 
Wordsworth,  13,  15,  83,  132. 
Wounded  Hussar,  The,  136. 


You  Are  My  Sky,  278. 
Young,  Brett,  77. 


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